Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Song of Ascents

The Guardian of God’s People

¹⁴ “‘This day is to be a memorial for you, and you are to celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. You are to celebrate it as a perpetual ordinance from generation to generation. ¹⁵ You are to eat unleavened bread for seven days. On the first day be sure to remove all the leaven from your houses, because any person who eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh will be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ Also, on the first day you’re to hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day you’re to hold a holy assembly. No work is to be done during those days, except for preparing what is to be eaten by each person.

¹⁷ “‘You are to observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread, since on this very day I brought your tribal divisions from the land of Egypt. You are to observe this day from generation to generation as a perpetual ordinance. ¹⁸ In the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day of the month until the evening of the twenty-first day of the month, you are to eat unleavened bread. ¹⁹ For seven days leaven is not to be found in your houses. Indeed, any person who eats anything leavened, is to be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether an alien or a native of the land. ²⁰ You are not to eat what is leavened. You are to eat unleavened bread in all your settlements.’”

²¹ Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and told them, “Choose sheep for your families, and slaughter the Passover lamb. ²² Take a bundle of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply some of the blood in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts. None of you is to go out of the doorway of his house until morning, ²³ because the Lord will pass through to strike down the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the doorway, and won’t allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down. ²⁴ You are to observe this event as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children forever. ²⁵ When you enter the land that the Lord will give you, just as he promised, you are to observe this ritual. ²⁶ And when your children say to you, ‘What does this ritual mean?’^{[a] 27} you are to say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelis in Egypt when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” Then the people bowed down and worshipped. ²⁸ The Israelis did this. Moses and Aaron did just what the Lord had commanded.

Live as God’s Servants

¹¹ Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and exiles to keep on abstaining from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. ¹² Continue to live such upright lives among the gentiles that, when they slander you as practicers of evil, they may see your good actions and glorify God when he visits them.^[a]

¹³ For the Lord’s sake submit yourselves to every human authority: whether to the king as supreme, ¹⁴ or to governors who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. ¹⁵ For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorant talk^[b] of foolish people. ¹⁶ Live like free people, and do not use your freedom as an excuse for doing evil. Instead, be God’s servants. ¹⁷ Honor everyone. Keep on loving the community of believers,^[c] fearing God, and honoring the king.