The Wartburg Project

Daily Lectionary

May 24, 2025

May 23, 2025 May 25, 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.

Leviticus 26:21-33, 39-44

21If you still remain hostile to me and you are not willing to listen to me, I will multiply the plague against you seven times more according to your sins. 22I will send against you the wild animals so that they will deprive you of your children and cut off your livestock. They will make you so few that your roads will be deserted.
23If in spite of all these things you still refuse to be disciplined by me, and you remain hostile to me, 24I will also remain hostile to you. I will strike you seven times more for your sins. 25I will bring a sword on you to avenge the covenant. If you withdraw into your towns, I will send an epidemic among you, so that you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26When I break your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven. They will have to ration[] your bread, and though you eat, you will not be satisfied.
27But if, in spite of all this, you will not listen to me and remain hostile to me, 28I will remain hostile to you in anger. I myself will discipline you seven times as much for your sins. 29You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. 30I will destroy your high places,[] cut down your incense burners, and place your corpses on the corpses of your filthy idols. With all my heart I will detest you. 31I will turn your towns into a wasteland and make your holy places desolate, and I will not smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices. 32I myself will make your land so desolate that your enemies who settle in it will be appalled at it, 33while I scatter you among the nations and unsheathe my sword against you. Then your land will be a desolation, and your towns will be a wasteland.
39Those of you who survive will rot away in the lands of your enemies because of their guilt. They will rot away because of the guilt of their ancestors. 40They will confess their guilt and the guilt of their ancestors because of the unfaithfulness that they committed against me, and also because they remained hostile to me. 41So I in turn became hostile to them, and I brought them into the land of their enemies. So their uncircumcised hearts will then be humbled, and they will then accept the punishment for their guilt.
42Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. I will remember also my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham as well. I will remember the land.
43The land will be empty of them, so that in its desolation it may enjoy its sabbaths without them, while they suffer punishment for their guilt, because, and only because, they rejected my ordinances and they detested my statutes with all their heart.
44Yet, for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, and I will not detest them so much that I exterminate them. I will not annul my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God.

Luke 14:1-24

Jesus in a Pharisee's Home
141One Sabbath day, when Jesus went into the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat bread, they were watching him closely.
2Right in front of him was a man who was suffering from swelling of his body.[] 3Jesus addressed the legal experts and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”
4But they were silent. So he took hold of the man, healed him, and let him go. 5He said to them, “Which of you, if your son[] or an ox would fall into a well on a Sabbath day, would not immediately pull him out?”
6And they could not reply to these things.
7When he noticed how they were selecting the places of honor, he told the invited guests a parable. 8“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline in the place of honor, or perhaps someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him. 9The one who invited both of you may come and tell you, ‘Give this man your place.’ Then you will begin, with shame, to take the lowest place.
10“But when you are invited, go and recline in the lowest place, so that when the one who invited you comes, he will tell you, ‘Friend, move up to a higher place.’ Then you will have honor in the presence of all who are reclining at the table with you.
11“Yes, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
12He also said to the one who had invited him, “When you make a dinner or a supper, do not invite your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives, or rich neighbors, so that perhaps they may also return the favor and pay you back.
13“But when you make a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. Certainly, you will be repaid in the resurrection of the righteous.”
The Parable of the Great Banquet
15When one of those at the table with him heard these things, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will feast in the kingdom of God!”
16Jesus said to him, “A certain man made a great banquet and invited many people. 17When it was time for the banquet, he sent out his servant to tell those who were invited, ‘Come, because everything is now ready.’ 18But they all alike began to make excuses.
“The first one told him, ‘I bought a field, and I need to go and see it. I ask you to excuse me.’
19“Another one said, ‘I bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out. I ask you to excuse me.’
20“Still another said, ‘I just got married, and so I am unable to attend.’
21“The servant arrived and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house was angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town, and bring in here the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’
22“The servant said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and there is still room.’
23“Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and urge them to come in, so that my house may be filled. 24Yes, I tell you that none of those men who were invited will taste my banquet.’”