Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 126

A song of ascents.

²¹ Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover^(A) lamb. ²² Take a bunch of hyssop,^(B) dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood^(C) on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. ²³ When the Lord goes through the land to strike^(D) down the Egyptians, he will see the blood^(E) on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over^(F) that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer^(G) to enter your houses and strike you down.

²⁴ “Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance^(H) for you and your descendants. ²⁵ When you enter the land^(I) that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. ²⁶ And when your children^(J) ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ ²⁷ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover^(K) sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’”^(L) Then the people bowed down and worshiped.^(M)

The Plot to Kill Jesus

⁴⁵ Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary,^(A) and had seen what Jesus did,^(B) believed in him.^{(C) 46} But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷ Then the chief priests and the Pharisees^(D) called a meeting^(E) of the Sanhedrin.^(F)

“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs.^{(G) 48} If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”

⁴⁹ Then one of them, named Caiaphas,^(H) who was high priest that year,^(I) spoke up, “You know nothing at all! ⁵⁰ You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”^(J)

⁵¹ He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, ⁵² and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.^{(K) 53} So from that day on they plotted to take his life.^(L)

⁵⁴ Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea.^(M) Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.

⁵⁵ When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover,^(N) many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing^(O) before the Passover. ⁵⁶ They kept looking for Jesus,^(P) and as they stood in the temple courts they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the festival at all?” ⁵⁷ But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was should report it so that they might arrest him.