Book of Common Prayer

¹⁹ Because of this, we know we are of the truth, and we will persuade our hearts of this fact before him, ²⁰ because if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts. He knows everything. ²¹ Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God, ²² and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commands and give him pleasure when he sees what we are doing. ²³ And this is his command, that we should believe in the name of his son Jesus the Messiah, and should love one another, just as he gave us the commandment. ²⁴ Anyone who keeps his commandments abides in him, and he in them. This is how we know that he abides in us, by his spirit that he has given us.

False prophets

4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit. Rather, test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Many false prophets, you see, have gone out into the world. ² This is how we know God’s spirit: every spirit that agrees that Jesus the Messiah has come in the flesh is from God, ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This spirit is actually the spirit of the Antimessiah. You have heard that it was coming, and now it is already in the world.

⁴ But you, children, are from God, and you have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵ They are from the world, and that is why they speak from the world, and why the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God; people who know God listen to us, but people who are not from God do not listen to us. That is how we can tell the spirit of truth from the spirit of error.

Opposition to Jesus in Nazareth

¹⁴ Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the spirit. His reputation spread throughout the whole district. ¹⁵ He taught in their synagogues to universal acclaim.

¹⁶ He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. On the sabbath, as was his regular practice, he went into the synagogue and stood up to read. ¹⁷ They gave him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

²⁰ He rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him.

²¹ “Today,” he began, “this scripture is fulfilled in your own hearing.”

²² Everyone remarked at him; they were astonished at the words coming out of his mouth—words of sheer grace.

“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they said.

²³ “I know what you’re going to say,” Jesus said. “You’re going to tell me the old riddle: ‘Heal yourself, doctor!’ ‘We heard of great happenings in Capernaum; do things like that here, in your own country!’

²⁴ “Let me tell you the truth,” he went on. “Prophets never get accepted in their own country. ²⁵ This is the solemn truth: there were plenty of widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a great famine over all the land. ²⁶ Elijah was sent to none of them, only to a widow in the Sidonian town of Zarephath.

²⁷ “And there were plenty of people with virulent skin diseases in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was healed—only Naaman, the Syrian.”

²⁸ When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue flew into a rage. ²⁹ They got up and threw him out of town. They took him to the top of the hill on which their town was built, meaning to fling him off. ³⁰ But he slipped through the middle of them and went away.