Daily Lectionary

November 8, 2023

November 7, 2023 November 9, 2023

These daily readings from the EHV follow the one-year daily lectionary provided in Christian Worship: Hymnal, the Lutheran Service Book, and the Treasury of Daily Prayer. In this lectionary, two readings of 15-25 verses each are provided for each day. Under this plan, nearly all of the New Testament and approximately one-third of the Old Testament are read each year. These readings fit well within the daily offices of Matins, Vespers, or Compline as daily family devotions.

Jeremiah 20:1-18

Jeremiah and Pashhur

20¹When Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer, who served as the chief officer in the House of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying about these things. ²Pashhur ordered them to beat Jeremiah the prophet, and he put him in the stocks at the Upper Benjamin Gate in the House of the Lord.

³The next day, when Pashhur released him from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord does not call you Pashhur, but Magor Missabib,^[] ⁴for this is what the Lord says: I will certainly make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They will fall by the sword of their enemies before your very eyes. I will hand Judah over to the king of Babylon. He will carry the people captive to Babylon, and he will strike them with the sword. ⁵Also, the riches of this city, all its property, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah—I will give it all away into the hands of their enemies. They will plunder them, seize them, and carry them off to Babylon. ⁶As for you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, you will go into captivity. You will go to Babylon! You will die there, and you will be buried there, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied falsely.”

Jeremiah's Confession

⁷You persuaded me, Lord, and I agreed to it.^[]

You are stronger than I am, and you won out.

I have become a laughingstock all day long,

and everyone is mocking me.

⁸Whenever I speak, I cry out.

I cry out, “Violence and destruction!”

But the word of the Lord has brought scorn on me.

I am mocked all day long.

⁹If I say, “I will not mention him

or speak in his name anymore,”

then there is a burning fire in my heart,

shut up in my bones,

and I am weary of holding it in.

I cannot!

¹⁰I hear many whispering,

“Terror on every side!”

All my close friends,

those who are watching for my fall, say,

“Denounce him! Let's denounce him.

Perhaps he can be pressured into making a mistake.

Then we will have the upper hand against him,

and we will take our revenge on him.”

¹¹But the Lord is with me like a terrifying warrior.

So my persecutors will stumble,

and they will not gain the upper hand.

They will be put to shame completely,

because they have not been successful.

Their eternal disgrace will never be forgotten.

¹² Lord of Armies, you test the righteous.

You see the heart and the mind.

Let me see your vengeance on them,

for I have laid out my case before you.

¹³Sing to the Lord!

Praise the Lord,

for he has delivered the life of the needy

from the hand of the wicked.

A Curse

¹⁴May the day I was born be cursed.

Do not let the day my mother gave birth to me be blessed.

¹⁵May the man be cursed who brought news to my father,

“A son is born to you,”

the man who brought him great joy.

¹⁶Let that man be like the cities the Lord overthrew without pity.

Let him hear a cry in the morning,

an alarm for war at noon,

¹⁷because he did not put me to death in the womb,

so that my mother would have been my grave,

and her womb would have been pregnant forever.

¹⁸Why did I emerge from that womb

to see trouble and sorrow,

to finish my days in shame?

Matthew 24:29-51

²⁹“Immediately after the misery of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ³⁰Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. And at that time all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. ³¹He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

³²“Learn this lesson from the fig tree. When its branch has become tender and produces leaves, you know that summer is near. ³³In the same way, when you see all these things, know that he is near, right at the doors. ³⁴Amen I tell you: This generation^[] will certainly not pass away until all these things take place. ³⁵Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Be Ready!

(see Mark 13:32-37; Luke 21:34-38)

³⁶“No one knows when that day and hour will be, not the angels of heaven, not even the Son, but only the Father. ³⁷Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be when the Son of Man returns. ³⁸In fact, in the days before the flood people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the very day that Noah entered the ark. ³⁹And they did not realize what was coming until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be when the Son of Man returns.

⁴⁰“At that time two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. ⁴¹Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. ⁴²So be alert, because you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. ⁴³But understand this: If the master of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴You also need to be ready for this reason: The Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect him.

⁴⁵“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give them their food at the proper time? ⁴⁶Blessed is that servant whom his master finds doing this when he returns. ⁴⁷Amen I tell you: He will put him in charge of all that he has. ⁴⁸But if that servant is wicked and says in his heart, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ ⁴⁹and he begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, ⁵⁰the master of that servant will return on a day when he does not expect it and at an hour he does not know. ⁵¹The master will cut him in two and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”