Daily Lectionary

April 28, 2025

April 27, 2025 April 29, 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 22:20-23:13

²⁰Whoever sacrifices to any god, except to the Lord alone, shall be devoted to destruction.

²¹You shall not wrong a resident alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

²²You shall not take advantage of any widow or fatherless child. ²³If you take advantage of them in any way, and they make even the faintest cry to me, I will surely hear their cry, ²⁴and my anger will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives will be widows, and your children fatherless.

²⁵If you lend money to anyone among my people who is poor, you must not act like a moneylender. You must not charge him interest. ²⁶If you take your neighbor's outer garment as collateral, you must restore it to him before the sun goes down, ²⁷for his garment is the only cover he has for his skin. What would he sleep in? Be assured that when he cries to me, I will hear, for I am gracious.

²⁸You shall not malign the judges,^[] nor curse a ruler of your people.

²⁹You shall not delay bringing offerings from your abundant harvest and from your overflowing wine vats.

You shall present the firstborn of your sons to me. ³⁰You shall do the same with your cattle and with your sheep. For seven days a newborn animal shall be with its mother. Then on the eighth day you shall present it to me.

³¹You are to be men set apart as holy for me. So you shall not eat any flesh that is torn by wild animals. You shall cast it to the dogs.

23¹You shall not spread a false report. Do not join hands with the wicked to be a malicious witness.

²You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. Do not go along with the crowd by testifying in court to pervert justice.

³You shall not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.

⁴If you come upon your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you certainly must bring it back to him again. ⁵If you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has fallen down under its load, do not pass him by. You certainly must help him with it.

⁶You shall not deny justice to the poor people among you in their lawsuits.

⁷Keep your distance from a false charge. Do not put those who are innocent and those who are righteous to death, for I will not acquit^[] the wicked.

⁸You shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and distorts the words of the righteous.

⁹You shall not oppress a resident alien, for you know how it feels to be an alien, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Laws About Sabbaths

¹⁰For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, ¹¹but during the seventh year you are to let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy among your people may eat, and the animals in the fields can eat what they leave. You are to deal with your vineyard and with your olive grove in the same way.

¹²Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey will have rest, and so that the son of your female servant and the resident alien will be refreshed.

¹³Be careful to do all the things that I have said to you. Do not mention the name of other gods. Do not let their names come out of your mouth.

Luke 4:16-30

¹⁶He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As was his custom, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. ¹⁷The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

¹⁸The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to set free those who are oppressed,

¹⁹and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.^[]

²⁰He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. ²¹He began to tell them, “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

²²They all spoke well of him and were impressed by the words of grace that came from his mouth. And they kept saying, “Isn't this Joseph's son?”

²³He told them, “Certainly you will quote this proverb to me, ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ Do here in your hometown everything we heard you did in Capernaum.” ²⁴And he said, “Amen^[] I tell you: No prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵But truly I tell you: There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three years and six months, while a great famine came over all the land. ²⁶Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow of Zarephath, in Sidon. ²⁷And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was healed except Naaman the Syrian.”

²⁸All those who were in the synagogue were filled with rage when they heard these things. ²⁹They got up and drove him out of the town. They led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. ³⁰But he passed through the middle of them and went on his way.