Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

God the Help of Those Who Seek Him

A Song of Ascents.

¹⁴ ‘So this day shall be to you ^(A)a memorial; and you shall keep it as a ^(B)feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast ^(C)by an everlasting ordinance. ^15 (D)Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, ^(E)that ^[a]person shall be ^[b]cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ On the first day there shall be ^(F)a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat—that only may be prepared by you. ¹⁷ So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for ^(G)on this same day I will have brought your ^[c]armies ^(H)out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. ^18 (I)In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. ¹⁹ For ^(J)seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land. ²⁰ You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’ ”

²¹ Then ^(K)Moses called for all the ^(L)elders of Israel and said to them, ^(M)“Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. ^22 (N)And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and ^(O)strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning. ^23 (P)For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the ^(Q)blood on the ^[d]lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and ^(R)not allow ^(S)the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. ²⁴ And you shall ^(T)observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever. ²⁵ It will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, ^(U)just as He promised, that you shall keep this service. ^26 (V)And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ ²⁷ that you shall say, ^(W)‘It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.’ ” So the people ^(X)bowed their heads and worshiped. ²⁸ Then the children of Israel went away and ^(Y)did so; just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

Living Before the World

¹¹ Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts ^(A)which war against the soul, ^12 (B)having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, ^(C)they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.

Submission to Government^(D)

^13 (E)Therefore submit yourselves to every ^[a]ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, ¹⁴ or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. ¹⁵ For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men— ^16 (F)as free, yet not ^(G)using liberty as a cloak for ^[b]vice, but as bondservants of God. ¹⁷ Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear ^(H)God. Honor the king.