Book of Common Prayer
The challenge of love
11 This is the message which you heard right from the start, you see, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one, and murdered his brother. Why did he murder him? Because his deeds were evil, while his brother’s were right.
13 Don’t be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the family. Anyone who doesn’t love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates their brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has the life of the coming age abiding in them. 16 This is how we know love: he laid down his life for us. And we too ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 Anyone who has the means of life in this world, and sees a brother or sister in need, and closes their heart against them—how can God’s love be abiding in them? 18 Children, let us not love in word, or in speech, but in deed and in truth.
Temptation in the wilderness
4 Jesus returned from the Jordan, filled with the spirit. The spirit took him off into the wilderness 2 for forty days, to be tested by the devil. He ate nothing during that time, and at the end of it he was hungry.
3 “If you are God’s son,” said the devil, “tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
4 “It is written,” replied Jesus, “ ‘It isn’t only bread that keeps you alive.’ ”
5 The devil then took him up and showed him, in an instant, all the kingdoms of the world.
6 “I will give you authority over all of this,” said the devil, “and all the prestige that goes with it. It’s been given to me, you see, and I give it to anyone I like. 7 So it can all be yours . . . if you will just worship me.”
8 “It is written,” replied Jesus, “ ‘The Lord your God is the one you must worship; he is the only one you must serve.’ ”
9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and stood him on a pinnacle of the Temple.
“If you are God’s son,” he said, “throw yourself down from here; 10 it’s written, after all, that ‘He will give his angels a command about you, to look after you’; 11 and ‘They will carry you in their hands, so that you won’t hit your foot against a stone.’ ”
12 “It has been said,” replied Jesus, “ ‘You mustn’t put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
13 When the devil had finished each temptation, he left him until another opportunity.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.