Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A song to sing as we climb.

The Lord has done great things for us!^[a]

²¹ Then Moses called the leaders of the Israelites to come to him. He said to them, ‘Go immediately and choose a lamb for each of your families. Then kill the animals for the Passover feast. ²² Put the blood into a dish. Then take a branch of hyssop.^[a] Make it wet with the blood that is in the dish. Then put some of the blood on the wood that is round your door. Nobody must go out of the door of his house until the morning. ²³ The Lord will pass through the country and he will kill the Egyptians. But when the Lord sees the blood on the wood round the door, he will pass over that house. He will not let the death angel come into your houses. The Lord will not let him kill you.

²⁴ You must obey these rules always, both you and your descendants, for all time. ²⁵ You will go into the land that the Lord promised to give you. Then you must continue to obey these rules. ²⁶ Your children may say to you, “What does this feast mean?” ²⁷ Then you must say to them, “It is the Lord's Passover sacrifice. The Lord passed over the houses of the Israelites when they were in Egypt. He killed the Egyptians but he saved our families.” ’ Then the people bent their heads down to the ground and they worshipped God.

The Pharisees decide how to kill Jesus

⁴⁵ The Jews who had come to visit Mary saw this. They saw what Jesus did. So many of them believed in him. ⁴⁶ But some of them went to the Pharisees. They told the Pharisees what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷ Then the Pharisees and the leaders of the priests had a meeting with the group of Jewish leaders. They asked each other, ‘What will we do? This man is doing so many miracles. ⁴⁸ If we let him do more things like this, everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman rulers will come and punish us.^[a] Their soldiers will destroy our temple and even destroy our whole country of Israel.’

⁴⁹ One of the group was the leader of the priests that year. He was called Caiaphas. He said, ‘You do not understand the problem. ⁵⁰ It is better that one man should die on behalf of our people. That is better than if all Israel's people should die.’ ⁵¹ Caiaphas did not say this because he had thought it by himself. No, he was speaking as a prophet, because he was the leader of the priests that year. That is why he said that Jesus would die on behalf of Israel's people. ⁵² And Jesus would die not only for Israel's people. He would also die for all God's people who lived in many different places. He would bring them all together. They would become like one big family.

⁵³ From that day, the Jewish leaders decided together how they could kill Jesus. ⁵⁴ So Jesus stopped travelling about in Judea where everyone could see him. Instead, he went away from there to a town called Ephraim that was near to the wilderness. He stayed there with his disciples.

⁵⁵ It was almost time for the Jewish Passover Festival to begin. Many people were going from their country places to Jerusalem. They were going there to make themselves clean in front of God before they went to the festival. ⁵⁶ They were continuing to look for Jesus. While they stood in the yard of the temple, they spoke to each other about him. They asked each other, ‘Do you think that he will come to the festival or not?’ ⁵⁷ The leaders of the priests and the Pharisees had spoken to the people about Jesus. They had told them, ‘If anyone knows where Jesus is, you must tell us.’ So then they could take hold of him to put him in a prison.