Lectionary Readings

Format: 03/17/2026

Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Special Significance: 
St. Patrick

Gn 22:9-19

9When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he bound* his son Isaac, and put him on top of the wood on the altar.c 10Then Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.d 11But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!” “Here I am,” he answered. 12“Do not lay your hand on the boy,” said the angel. “Do not do the least thing to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you did not withhold from me your son, your only one.”e 13Abraham looked up and saw a single ram caught by its horns in the thicket. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son.* 14Abraham named that place Yahweh-yireh;* hence people today say, “On the mountain the LORD will provide.”

15* A second time the angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven 16f and said: “I swear by my very self—oracle of the LORD—that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your son, your only one, 17I will bless you and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore; your descendants will take possession of the gates of their enemies,g 18and in your descendants all the nations of the earth will find blessing, because you obeyed my command.”h

19Abraham then returned to his servants, and they set out together for Beer-sheba, where Abraham lived.

Eph 5:1-4

1So be imitators of God,* as beloved children,a 2and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.b 3Immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be mentioned among you, as is fitting among holy ones,c 4no obscenity or silly or suggestive talk, which is out of place, but instead, thanksgiving.d

Lk 4:16-19

The Rejection at Nazareth.* l 16He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom* into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read 17and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

18“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,*

because he has anointed me

to bring glad tidings to the poor.m

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

19and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”