Book of Common Prayer
The God of peace be with you
17 Obey your leaders; submit to them. They are keeping watch over your lives, you see, as people who will have to give account. Make sure they can do this with joy, not with a groan. That would be of no value to you.
18 Pray for us! Our conscience is clear; we are quite sure of it. We wish to act appropriately in everything. 19 I beg you especially to do this, so that I may quickly be restored to you.
20 May the God of peace, who led up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 make you complete in every good work so that you may do his will. May he perform, in you, whatever will be pleasing in his sight, through Jesus the Messiah. Glory be to him forever and ever, Amen!
22 I beg you, my dear family, bear with this word of exhortation; I’ve written to you quite briefly, after all. 23 You should know that our brother Timothy has been released. If he comes soon, I will see you and him at the same time.
24 Greet all your leaders, and all God’s people. Those from Italy send you greetings. 25 Grace be with you all.
Adultery and hypocrisy
53 They all went off home,
8 and Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 In the morning he went back to the Temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.
3 The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught out in adultery. They stood her out in the middle.
4 “Teacher,” they said to him. “This woman was caught in the very act of adultery. 5 In the law, Moses commanded us to stone people like this. What do you say?”
6 They said this to test him, so that they could frame a charge against him.
Jesus squatted down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they went on pressing the question, he got up and said to them, “Whichever of you is without sin should throw the first stone at her.”
8 And once again he squatted down and wrote on the ground.
9 When they heard that, they went off one by one, beginning with the oldest. Jesus was left alone, with the woman still standing there.
10 Jesus looked up.
“Where are they, woman?” he asked. “Hasn’t anybody condemned you?”
11 “Nobody, sir,” she replied.
“Well, then,” said Jesus, “I don’t condemn you either! Off you go—and from now on don’t sin again!”
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.