Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A Prayer of Thanks for Victory
118 (A)Give thanks to the Lord, because he is good,
and his love is eternal.
2 Let the people of Israel say,
“His love is eternal.”
19 Open to me the gates of the Temple;
I will go in and give thanks to the Lord!
20 This is the gate of the Lord;
only the righteous can come in.
21 I praise you, Lord, because you heard me,
because you have given me victory.
22 (A)The stone which the builders rejected as worthless
turned out to be the most important of all.
23 This was done by the Lord;
what a wonderful sight it is!
24 This is the day of the Lord's victory;
let us be happy, let us celebrate!
25 (B)Save us, Lord, save us!
Give us success, O Lord!
26 (C)May God bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
From the Temple of the Lord we bless you.
27 The Lord is God; he has been good to us.
With branches in your hands, start the festival
and march around the altar.
28 You are my God, and I give you thanks;
I will proclaim your greatness.
29 Give thanks to the Lord, because he is good,
and his love is eternal.
The Passover(A)
16 (B)“Honor the Lord your God by celebrating Passover in the month of Abib; it was on a night in that month that he rescued you from Egypt. 2 Go to the one place of worship and slaughter there one of your sheep or cattle for the Passover meal to honor the Lord your God. 3 When you eat this meal, do not eat bread prepared with yeast. For seven days you are to eat bread prepared without yeast, as you did when you had to leave Egypt in such a hurry. Eat this bread—it will be called the bread of suffering—so that as long as you live you will remember the day you came out of Egypt, that place of suffering. 4 For seven days no one in your land is to have any yeast in the house; and the meat of the animal killed on the evening of the first day must be eaten that same night.
5-6 “Slaughter the Passover animals at the one place of worship—and nowhere else in the land that the Lord your God will give you. Do it at sunset, the time of day when you left Egypt. 7 Boil the meat and eat it at the one place of worship; and the next morning return home. 8 For the next six days you are to eat bread prepared without yeast, and on the seventh day assemble to worship the Lord your God, and do no work on that day.
Christ's Humility and Greatness
2 Your life in Christ makes you strong, and his love comforts you. You have fellowship with the Spirit,[a] and you have kindness and compassion for one another. 2 I urge you, then, to make me completely happy by having the same thoughts, sharing the same love, and being one in soul and mind. 3 Don't do anything from selfish ambition or from a cheap desire to boast, but be humble toward one another, always considering others better than yourselves. 4 And look out for one another's interests, not just for your own. 5 The attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had:
6 He always had the nature of God,
but he did not think that by force he should try to remain[b] equal with God.
7 Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had,
and took the nature of a servant.
He became like a human being
and appeared in human likeness.
8 He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death—
his death on the cross.
9 For this reason God raised him to the highest place above
and gave him the name that is greater than any other name.
10 (A)And so, in honor of the name of Jesus
all beings in heaven, on earth, and in the world below[c]
will fall on their knees,
11 and all will openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.