Book of Common Prayer
Looking back on life under the law
13 Was it that good thing, then, that brought death to me? Certainly not! On the contrary; it was sin, in order that it might appear as sin, working through the good thing and producing death in me. This was in order that sin might become very sinful indeed, through the commandment.
14 We know, you see, that the law is spiritual. I, however, am made of flesh, sold as a slave under sin’s authority. 15 I don’t understand what I do. I don’t do what I want, you see, but I do what I hate. 16 So if I do what I don’t want to do, I am agreeing that the law is good.
17 But now it is no longer I that do it; it’s sin, living within me. 18 I know, you see, that no good thing lives in me, that is, in my human flesh. For I can will the good, but I can’t perform it. 19 For I don’t do the good thing I want to do, but I end up doing the evil thing I don’t want to do. 20 So if I do what I don’t want to do, it’s no longer “I” doing it; it’s sin, living inside me.
The double “law” and the miserable “I”
21 This, then, is what I find about the law: when I want to do what is right, evil lies close at hand! 22 I delight in God’s law, you see, according to my inmost self; 23 but I see another “law” in my limbs and organs, fighting a battle against the law of my mind, and taking me off into captivity in the law of sin which is in my limbs and organs.
24 What a miserable person I am! Who is going to rescue me from the body of this death? 25 Thank God—through Jesus our Messiah and Lord! So then, left to my own self I am enslaved to God’s law with my mind, but to sin’s law with my human flesh.
The parable of the tenants
33 “Listen to another parable,” Jesus went on. “Once upon a time there was a householder who planted a vineyard, built a wall for it, dug out a wine-press in it, and built a tower. Then he let it out to tenant farmers and went away on a journey.
34 “When harvest time arrived, he sent his slaves to the farmers to collect his produce. 35 The farmers seized his slaves; they beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than before, and they treated them in the same way. 37 Finally he sent his son to them.
“ ‘They’ll respect my son,’ he said.
38 “But the farmers saw the son.
“ ‘This fellow’s the heir!’ they said among themselves. ‘Come on, let’s kill him, and then we can take over the property!’
39 “So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
40 “Now then: when the vineyard-owner returns, what will he do to those farmers?”
41 “He’ll kill them brutally, the wretches!” they said. “And he’ll lease the vineyard to other farmers who’ll give him the produce at the right time.”
42 “Did you never read what the Bible says?” said Jesus to them:
The stone the builders threw away
is now atop the corner;
it’s from the Lord, all this, they say
and we looked on in wonder.
43 “So then let me tell you this: God’s kingdom is going to be taken away from you and given to a nation that will produce the goods. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be smashed to pieces, and anyone it falls on will be crushed.”
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They tried to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowds, who regarded him as a prophet.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.