Book of Common Prayer

Opponents of the truth

3 You need to know this: bad times are coming in the last days. ² People will be in love with themselves, you see, and with money too. They will be boastful, arrogant, abusive, haters of parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ unfeeling, implacable, accusing, dissolute, savage, haters of the good, ⁴ traitors, reckless, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ holding on to a pattern of godliness but denying its power. Avoid people like that! ⁶ This group, you see, includes those who worm their way into people’s houses and ensnare foolish women who are overwhelmed with their sins and are pulled and pushed by all kinds of desires, ⁷ always learning but never able to arrive at the truth. ⁸ Just as Jannes and Jambres stood up against Moses, so people like this oppose the truth. In their minds they are corrupt; in their faith they are of no account. ⁹ They won’t get very far, though, because their foolishness will become obvious to everyone, as it was with those two.

Continue in the scriptures!

¹⁰ So what about you? You have followed my teaching faithfully, and also my way of life, my aims and goals, my faith, longsuffering, love and patience, ¹¹ my persecutions, my sufferings, the things I went through in Antioch, in Iconium, in Lystra, the persecutions I endured—and the Lord rescued me from all of them. ¹² Yes, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Messiah Jesus will be persecuted, ¹³ while evil people and impostors will go on to even worse things, deceiving others and being themselves deceived. ¹⁴ But you, on the other hand, must stand firm in the things you learned and believed. You know who it was you received them from, ¹⁵ and how from childhood you have known the holy writings which have the power to make you wise for salvation through faith in Messiah Jesus. ¹⁶ All scripture, breathed as it is by God, is useful for teaching, for rebuke, for improvement, for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that people who belong to God may be complete, fitted out and ready for every good work.

The request of James and John

³² They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem. Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and the people following were afraid.

Again he took the Twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to him. ³³ “Look,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem. The son of man will be handed over to the chief priests and the legal experts, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the pagans. ³⁴ They will taunt him and spit at him and flog him and kill him—and after three days he will rise again.”

³⁵ James and John, Zebedee’s sons, came up to him.

“Teacher,” they said, “we want you to grant us whatever we ask.”

³⁶ “What do you want me to do for you?” asked Jesus.

³⁷ “Grant us,” they said, “that when you’re there in all your glory, one of us will sit at your right, and the other at your left.”

³⁸ “You don’t know what you’re asking for!” Jesus replied. “Can you drink the cup I’m going to drink? Can you receive the baptism I’m going to receive?”

³⁹ “Yes,” they said, “we can.”

“Well,” said Jesus, “you will drink the cup I drink; you will receive the baptism I receive. ⁴⁰ But sitting at my right hand or my left—that’s not up to me. It’s been assigned already.”

⁴¹ When the other ten disciples heard, they were angry with James and John. ⁴² Jesus called them to him.

“You know how it is in the pagan nations,” he said. “Think how their so-called rulers act. They lord it over their subjects. The high and mighty ones boss the rest around. ⁴³ But that’s not how it’s going to be with you. Anyone who wants to be great among you must become your servant. ⁴⁴ Anyone who wants to be first must be everyone’s slave. ⁴⁵ Don’t you see? The son of man didn’t come to be waited on. He came to be the servant, to give his life ‘as a ransom for many.’ ”