Daily Readings - 21/04/2026

^7:51 You stubborn people, with your pagan hearts and pagan ears. You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.

^7:52 Can you name a single prophet your ancestors never persecuted? In the past they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, and now you have become his betrayers, his murderers.

^7:53 You who had the Law brought to you by angels are the very ones who have not kept it.’

^7:54 They were infuriated when they heard this, and ground their teeth at him.

^7:55 But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand.

^7:56 ‘I can see heaven thrown open’ he said ‘and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’

^7:57 At this all the members of the council shouted out and stopped their ears with their hands; then they all rushed at him,

^7:58 sent him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses[*q] put down their clothes at the feet of a young man called Saul.

^7:59 As they were stoning him, Stephen said in invocation, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit’.

^7:60 Then he knelt down and said aloud, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’; and with these words he fell asleep.

^8:1 Saul entirely approved of the killing. That day a bitter persecution started against the church in Jerusalem, and everyone[*a] except the apostles fled to the country districts of Judaea and Samaria.

^30:1 High praise, Yahweh, I give you, for you have helped me up, and not let my enemies gloat over me.

^30:2 Yahweh, my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.

^30:3 Yahweh, you have brought my soul up from Sheol, of all those who go down to the Pit you have revived me.

^30:4 Play music in Yahweh’s honour, you devout, remember his holiness, and praise him.

^30:5 His anger lasts a moment, his favour a lifetime; in the evening, a spell of tears, in the morning, shouts of joy.

^30:6 In my prosperity, I used to say, ‘Nothing can ever shake me!’

^30:7 Your favour, Yahweh, stood me on a peak impregnable; but then you hid your face and I was terrified.

^30:8 Yahweh, I call to you, I beg my God to pity me,

^30:9 ‘What do you gain by my blood[*a] if I go down to the Pit? Can the dust praise you or proclaim your faithfulness?

^30:10 ‘Hear, Yahweh, take pity on me; Yahweh, help me!’

^30:11 You have turned my mourning into dancing, you have stripped off my sackcloth and wrapped me in gladness

^30:12 and now my heart, silent no longer, will play you music; Yahweh, my God, I will praise you for ever.

^6:30 So they said, ‘What Sign will you give to show us that we should believe in you? What work will you do?

^6:31 Our fathers had manna to eat in the desert; as scripture says: He gave them bread from heaven to eat'[*a].

^6:32 Jesus answered: ‘I tell you most solemnly, it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread;

^6:33 for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world’.

^6:34 ‘Sir,’ they said ‘give us that bread always.’

^6:35 Jesus answered: ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never thirst.