Book of Common Prayer
Mission and magic
13 In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Symeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen from the court of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. 2 As they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the holy spirit said, “Set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 So they fasted and prayed; and then they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
4 So off they went, sent out by the holy spirit, and arrived at Seleucia. From there they set sail to Cyprus, 5 and when they arrived in Salamis they announced God’s word in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their assistant. 6 They went through the whole of the island, all the way to Paphos. There they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. 7 He was with the governor, Sergius Paulus, who was an intelligent man. He called Barnabas and Saul and asked to hear the word of God. 8 The magician Elymas (that is the translation of his name) was opposing them, and doing his best to turn the governor away from the faith. 9 But Saul, also named Paul, looked intently at him, filled with the holy spirit.
10 “You’re full of trickery and every kind of villainy!” he said. “You’re a son of the devil! You’re an enemy of everything that’s right! When are you going to stop twisting the paths that God has made straight? 11 Now see here: the Lord’s hand will be upon you, and you will be blind for a while; you won’t even be able to see the sun!”
At once mist and darkness fell on him, and he went about looking for someone to lead him by the hand. 12 When the governor saw what had happened, he believed, since he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.
The man born blind
9 As Jesus was going along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth.
2 “Teacher,” his disciples asked him, “whose sin was it that caused this man to be born blind? Did he sin, or did his parents?”
3 “He didn’t sin,” replied Jesus, “nor did his parents. It happened so that God’s works could be seen in him. 4 We must work the works of the one who sent me as long as it’s still daytime. The night is coming, and nobody can work then! 5 As long as I’m in the world, I’m the light of the world.”
6 With these words, he spat on the ground, and made some mud out of his spittle. He spread the mud on the man’s eyes.
7 “Off you go,” he said to him, “and wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “sent”). So he went off and washed. When he came back, he could see.
8 His neighbors, and the people who used to see him begging, remarked on this.
“Isn’t this the man,” they said, “who used to sit here and beg?”
9 “Yes, it’s him!” said some of them.
“No, it isn’t!” said some others. “It’s somebody like him.”
But the man himself spoke.
“Yes, it’s me,” he said.
10 “Well, then,” they said to him, “how did your eyes get opened?”
11 “It was the man called Jesus!” he replied. “He made some mud, then he spread it on my eyes, and told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went, and washed, and I could see!”
12 “Where is he?” they asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
The blind man’s parents
13 They took the man who had been blind and brought him to the Pharisees. 14 (The day Jesus had made the mud, and opened his eyes, was a sabbath.) 15 So the Pharisees began to ask him again how he had come to see.
“He put some mud on my eyes,” he said, “and I washed, and now I can see!”
16 “The man can’t be from God,” some of the Pharisees began to say. “He doesn’t keep the sabbath!”
“Well, but,” replied some of the others, “how can a man who is a sinner do signs like these?”
And they were divided.
17 So they spoke to the blind man again.
“What have you got to say about him?” they asked. “He opened your eyes, after all.”
“He’s a prophet,” he replied.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.