Book of Common Prayer

Love, the law and the coming day

⁸ Don’t owe anything to anyone, except the debt of mutual love. If you love your neighbor, you see, you have fulfilled the law. ⁹ Commandments like “don’t commit adultery, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t covet”—and any other commandment—are summed up in this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no wrong to its neighbor; so love is the fulfillment of the law.

¹¹ This is all the more important because you know what time it is. The hour has come for you to wake up from sleep. Our salvation, you see, is nearer now than it was when first we came to faith. ¹² The night is nearly over, the day is almost here. So let’s put off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. ¹³ Let’s behave appropriately, as in the daytime: not in wild parties and drunkenness, not in orgies and shameless immorality, not in bad temper and jealousy. ¹⁴ Instead, put on the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, and don’t make any allowance for the flesh and its lusts.

Gethsemane

³⁶ So Jesus went with them to the place called Gethsemane.

“You sit here,” he said to the disciples, “while I go over there and pray.”

³⁷ He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee with him, and began to be very upset and distressed.

³⁸ “My soul is overwhelmed with grief,” he said, “even to death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

³⁹ Then, going a little further on, he fell on his face and prayed.

“My father,” he said, “if it’s possible—please, please let this cup go away from me! But . . . not what I want, but what you want.”

⁴⁰ He came back to the disciples and found them asleep.

“So,” he said to Peter, “couldn’t you keep watch with me for a single hour? ⁴¹ Watch and pray so that you don’t get pulled down into the time of testing. The spirit is eager, but the body is weak.”

⁴² Again, for the second time, he went off and said, “My father, if it’s not possible for this to pass unless I drink it, let your will be done.”

⁴³ Again he came and found them asleep; their eyes were heavy. ⁴⁴ Once more he left them and went away. He prayed for the third time, using the same words once again. ⁴⁵ Then he came back to the disciples.

“You can sleep now,” he said, “and have a good rest! Look—the time has come, and the son of man is given over into the hands of wicked people! ⁴⁶ Get up and let’s be going. Look! Here comes the one who’s going to betray me!”