Daily Lectionary

April 17, 2025

April 16, 2025 April 18, 2025

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.

Exodus 12:1-28

Instructions for the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread

12¹The Lord told Moses and Aaron this in the land of Egypt:^[]

²This month is to be the beginning of your calendar. It is to be the first month of the year for you. ³Tell the entire Israelite community that on the tenth day of this month, they are to take a lamb or a kid goat^[] for themselves, according to their fathers' households, one lamb per household. ⁴But if the household is too small for a whole lamb, then that person and his neighbor next door to him must select one, based on the number of people. Determine what size lamb is needed according to how much each person will eat.

⁵Your lamb must be unblemished, a year-old male. You may take it from the sheep or the goats. ⁶You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month. Then the whole assembly of the Israelite community is to slaughter the lambs at sunset.^[] ⁷They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat the lamb. ⁸That night they shall eat the meat that has been roasted over a fire, along with unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs. ⁹Do not eat it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over a fire, with its head, its legs, and its internal organs. ¹⁰You shall not leave any of it until the morning. Whatever remains until the morning, you shall burn in the fire. ¹¹This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt ready for travel,^[] your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover.

¹²For on that night I will pass through the land of Egypt. I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both people and animals. Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. ¹³The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. There will be no plague among you to destroy you, when I strike down the land of Egypt.

¹⁴This day shall be a memorial for you, and you are to celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. Throughout your generations you must celebrate it as a permanent regulation. ¹⁵For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you must be sure to remove all yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day will be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶On the first day you are to have a holy convocation; also on the seventh day there is to be a holy convocation. You shall not do any work, except to prepare what everybody needs to eat. That is all you may do.

¹⁷You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because on this very day I brought your divisions out from the land of Egypt. You shall observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent regulation. ¹⁸In the first month, you shall eat unleavened bread from the evening of the fourteenth day of the month until the evening of the twenty-first day of the month. ¹⁹No yeast is to be found in your houses for seven days, for whoever eats something leavened must be cut off from the Israelite community, whether a foreigner or native-born of the land. ²⁰You shall not eat anything leavened. You shall eat unleavened bread in every place you live.

²¹Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and take lambs for yourselves according to your family size, and slaughter the Passover lamb. ²²You shall take a bundle of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and paint the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you are to go out of the door of your house until morning. ²³When the Lord passes through to strike Egypt and sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.

²⁴“You shall observe these instructions as a perpetual regulation for you and your descendants. ²⁵When you enter the land that the Lord will give you just as he said he would, you shall observe this ceremony. ²⁶So when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ ²⁷you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Passover to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. When he struck the Egyptians, he spared our houses.’”

The people bowed down and worshipped. ²⁸The Israelites went and did all this. They did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

Hebrews 5:1-14

Our High Priest Is Like Melchizedek

5¹To be sure, every high priest is chosen from the people and is appointed to represent the people in the things pertaining to God, so that he may offer gifts, as well as sacrifices, for sins. ²He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also weak in many ways. ³And for this reason he is obligated to offer sacrifices for his own sins, just as he does for the people.

⁴No one takes this honor on himself, but he is called by God, just as Aaron was. ⁵In the same way, Christ did not take the glory of becoming a high priest on himself, but God said to him:

You are my Son.

Today I have begotten you.^[]

⁶He also said the same thing in another place:

You are a priest forever, like Melchizedek.^[]

⁷In the days of his flesh,^[] he offered prayers and pleas with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. ⁸Although he was the Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. ⁹After he was brought to his goal, he became the source of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him, ¹⁰because he was designated by God as a high priest, like Melchizedek.

Milk or Solid Food

¹¹We have much to say about this, and it is difficult to explain, because you have become too lazy to listen. ¹²In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the beginning principles of God's word all over again. You have become people who need milk, not solid food. ¹³For everyone who lives on milk is not acquainted with the word of righteousness, because he is still an infant. ¹⁴But solid food is for mature people, who have their senses trained by practice to distinguish between good and evil.