Book of Common Prayer

2 My children, I am writing these things to you so that you will not do wrong things. But if anyone does something wrong, we have a Friend to help us. He speaks to God for us. He is Jesus Christ who does what is right.

² He himself is the sacrifice God offered to pay for the wrong we have done. And he pays for the wrong things all people in all the world have done.

³ We can be sure that we know him when we obey his laws.

⁴ If any man says, `I know him' and does not obey his laws, he is telling a lie. He does not know what is true.

⁵ But if any man obeys his word, he really loves God. Here is the way that we may be sure that we belong to him.

⁶ If any man says he belongs to him, he must live in the same way Christ lived.

⁷ My dear brothers, I am not writing you a new law. This is an old law. You had it from the beginning. The old law is the word which you have heard.

⁸ But in a way, I am writing you a new law. The darkness is going away and the true light is shining already.

⁹ Does anyone say he is in the light, and hates his brother? Then he is still in the dark.

¹⁰ The man who loves his brother lives in the light. There is nothing in him to make him do wrong.

¹¹ But the man who hates his brother is in the dark. He lives in the dark. He does not know where he is going, because the darkness has made him blind.

³⁵ Jesus went around to all the cities and towns. He taught people in their meeting houses and told them the good news of the kingdom of heaven. He healed all the sick and weak people.

³⁶ He saw the many people and was sorry for them. They were troubled and they could not help themselves. They were like sheep with no one to care for them.

³⁷ Then Jesus said to his disciples, `The harvest is much. But there are not many people to gather it.

³⁸ Talk to the Lord of this harvest, and ask him to send out people to his harvest.'

10 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him. He gave them power over bad spirits so they could drive them out of people. He gave them power to heal people who were sick or weak in any way.

^2-4 he names of the twelve apostles are: Simon, whose other name was Peter, and his brother Andrew, James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose other name was Thaddaeus, Simon, the freedom fighter, and Judas Iscariot, the one who gave Jesus over to people who hated him.