Book of Common Prayer

Death and glory

⁷ But just think about it: when death was being distributed, carved in letters of stone, it was a glorious thing, so glorious in fact that the children of Israel couldn’t look at Moses’s face because of the glory of his face—a glory that was to be abolished. ⁸ But in that case, when the spirit is being distributed, won’t that be glorious too? ⁹ If distributing condemnation is glorious, you see, how much more glorious is it to distribute vindication! ¹⁰ In fact, what used to be glorious has come in this respect to have no glory at all, because of the new glory which goes so far beyond it. ¹¹ For if the thing which was to be abolished came with glory, how much more glory will there be for the thing that lasts.

The veil and the glory

¹² So, because that’s the kind of hope we have, we speak with great freedom. ¹³ We aren’t like Moses: he put a veil over his face, to stop the children of Israel from gazing at the end of what was being abolished. ¹⁴ The difference is that their minds were hardened. You see, the same veil lies over the reading of the old covenant right up to this very day. It isn’t taken away, because it’s in the Messiah that it is abolished.

¹⁵ Yes, even to this day, whenever Moses is read, the veil lies upon their hearts; ¹⁶ but “whenever he turns back to the Lord, the veil is removed.” ¹⁷ Now “the Lord” here means the spirit; and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And all of us, without any veil on our faces, gaze at the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, and so are being changed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as you’d expect from the Lord, the spirit.

Peter’s declaration of Jesus’ messiahship

¹⁸ When Jesus was praying alone, his disciples gathered around him.

“Who do the crowds say I am?” he asked them.

¹⁹ “John the Baptist,” they responded. “And others say Elijah. Others say that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.”

²⁰ “What about you?” said Jesus. “Who do you say I am?”

“God’s Messiah,” answered Peter.

²¹ He gave them strict and careful instructions not to tell this to anyone.

²² “The son of man,” he said, “must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, and the chief priests, and the legal experts. He must be killed, and raised up on the third day.”

²³ He then spoke to them all. “If any of you want to come after me,” he said, “you must say no to yourselves, and pick up your cross every day, and follow me. ²⁴ If you want to save your life, you’ll lose it; but if you lose your life because of me, you’ll save it. ²⁵ What good will it do you if you win the entire world, but lose or forfeit your own self? ²⁶ If you’re ashamed of me and my words, the son of man will be ashamed of you, when he comes in the glory which belongs to him, and to the father, and to the holy angels.

²⁷ “Let me tell you,” he concluded, “there are some standing here who won’t experience death until they see God’s kingdom.”