Book of Common Prayer
Don’t neglect God’s salvation!
2 So, then, we must pay all the closer attention to what we heard, in case we drift away from it. 2 You see, if the word which was spoken through angels was reliable, with appropriate and just punishment every time anyone broke it or disobeyed it, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore a rescue as great as this? It started by being declared through the Lord, and it was confirmed to us by those who heard him; 4 and God bore witness as well, along with them, in signs and wonders and many different types of powerful deeds, and by the holy spirit, distributed in accordance with his will.
Jesus as the truly human being
5 You see, God didn’t place the world to come (which is what I’m writing about) under the control of angels. 6 Someone has spoken of it somewhere in these terms:
What are humans, that you should remember them?
What is the son of man, that you should take thought for him?
7 You made him a little lower than the angels,
you crowned him with glory and honor,
8 and you placed everything under his feet.
When it speaks of everything being subjected to him, it leaves nothing that is not subjected to him. As things are at present, we don’t see everything subjected to him. 9 What we do see is the one who was, for a little while, made lower than the angels—that is, Jesus—crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by God’s grace he might taste death on behalf of everyone.
The Messiah and his brothers and sisters
10 This is how it works out. Everything exists for the sake of God and because of him; and it was appropriate that, in bringing many children to glory, he should make perfect, through suffering, the one who leads the way to salvation.
The evidence of John
19 This is the evidence John gave, when the Judaeans sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”
20 He was quite open about it; he didn’t try to deny it. He said, quite openly, “I am not the Messiah.”
21 “What then?” they asked. “Are you Elijah?”
“No, I’m not,” he replied.
“Are you the Prophet?”
“No.”
22 “Well, then, who are you?” they said. “We’ve got to take some kind of answer back to the people who sent us. Who do you claim to be?”
23 “I’m a voice calling in the desert,” he said, “ ‘Straighten out the road for the master!’ ”—just as the prophet Isaiah said.
24 The people who had been sent were from the Pharisees. 25 They continued to question him.
“So why are you baptizing,” they asked, “if you aren’t the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet?”
26 “I’m baptizing with water,” John replied. “But there is someone standing among you that you don’t know, 27 someone who is to come after me. I’m not good enough to undo his sandal-strap.”
28 This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.