Daily Gospel Plan

¹When they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, Jesus then sent two disciples,

²telling them, “Go into the village ahead of you. At once you will find a donkey tied there with her foal. Untie them and bring them to me.

³If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them at once.”

⁴This took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled:

⁵Tell Daughter Zion, “See, your King is coming to you, gentle, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

⁶The disciples went and did just as Jesus directed them.

⁷They brought the donkey and its foal; then they laid their clothes on them, and he sat on them.

⁸A very large crowd spread their clothes on the road; others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road.

⁹Then the crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed shouted: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!

¹⁰When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in an uproar, saying, “Who is this?”

¹¹The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

¹²Jesus went into the temple and threw out all those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves.

¹³He said to them, “It is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves!”

¹⁴The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

¹⁵When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that he did and the children shouting in the temple,” Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant

¹⁶and said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” Jesus replied, “Yes, have you never read: You have prepared praise from the mouths of infants and nursing babies?”

¹⁷Then he left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.

¹⁸Early in the morning, as he was returning to the city, he was hungry.

¹⁹Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it except leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” At once the fig tree withered.

²⁰When the disciples saw it, they were amazed and said, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?”

²¹Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you tell this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done.

²²And if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

²³When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority?”

²⁴Jesus answered them, “I will also ask you one question, and if you answer it for me, then I will tell you by what authority I do these things.

²⁵Did John’s baptism come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” They discussed it among themselves, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him? ’

²⁶But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we’re afraid of the crowd, because everyone considers John to be a prophet.”

²⁷So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

²⁸“What do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘My son, go work in the vineyard today.’

²⁹“He answered, ‘I don’t want to’ but later he changed his mind and went.

³⁰Then the man went to the other and said the same thing. ‘I will, sir,’ he answered, but he didn’t go.

³¹Which of the two did his father’s will?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.

³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you didn’t believe him. Tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; but you, when you saw it, didn’t even change your minds then and believe him.

³³“Listen to another parable: There was a landowner, who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. He leased it to tenant farmers and went away.

³⁴When the time came to harvest fruit, he sent his servants to the farmers to collect his fruit.

³⁵The farmers took his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.

³⁶Again, he sent other servants, more than the first group, and they did the same to them.

³⁷Finally, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.

³⁸“But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’

³⁹So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

⁴⁰Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?”

⁴¹“He will completely destroy those terrible men,” they told him, “and lease his vineyard to other farmers who will give him his fruit at the harvest.”

⁴²Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is what the Lord has done and it is wonderful in our eyes?

⁴³Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit.

⁴⁴Whoever falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will shatter him.”

⁴⁵When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew he was speaking about them.

⁴⁶Although they were looking for a way to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because the people regarded him as a prophet.

¹Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables:

²“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.

³He sent his servants to summon those invited to the banquet, but they didn’t want to come.

⁴Again, he sent out other servants and said, ‘Tell those who are invited: See, I’ve prepared my dinner; my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

⁵“But they paid no attention and went away, one to his own farm, another to his business,

⁶while the rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.

⁷The king was enraged, and he sent out his troops, killed those murderers, and burned down their city.

⁸“Then he told his servants, ‘The banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.

⁹Go then to where the roads exit the city and invite everyone you find to the banquet.’

¹⁰So those servants went out on the roads and gathered everyone they found, both evil and good. The wedding banquet was filled with guests.

¹¹When the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed for a wedding.

¹²So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.

¹³“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him up hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

¹⁴“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

¹⁵Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to trap him by what he said.

¹⁶So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are truthful and teach truthfully the way of God. You don’t care what anyone thinks nor do you show partiality.

¹⁷Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

¹⁸Perceiving their malicious intent, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, hypocrites?

¹⁹Show me the coin used for the tax.” They brought him a denarius.

²⁰“Whose image and inscription is this?” he asked them.

²¹“Caesar’s,” they said to him. Then he said to them, “Give, then, to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

²²When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

²³That same day some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came up to him and questioned him:

²⁴“Teacher, Moses said, if a man dies, having no children, his brother is to marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.

²⁵Now there were seven brothers among us. The first got married and died. Having no offspring, he left his wife to his brother.

²⁶The same thing happened to the second also, and the third, and so on to all seven.

²⁷Last of all, the woman died.

²⁸In the resurrection, then, whose wife will she be of the seven? For they all had married her.”

²⁹Jesus answered them, “You are mistaken, because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God.

³⁰For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.

³¹Now concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven’t you read what was spoken to you by God:

³²I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

³³And when the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.

³⁴When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together.

³⁵And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test him:

³⁶“Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”

³⁷He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

³⁸This is the greatest and most important command.

³⁹The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

⁴¹While the Pharisees were together, Jesus questioned them,

⁴²“What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They replied, “David’s.”

⁴³He asked them, “How is it then that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’

⁴⁴ The Lord declared to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet’?

⁴⁵“If David calls him ‘Lord,’ how then can he be his son?”

⁴⁶No one was able to answer him at all, and from that day no one dared to question him anymore.