Book of Common Prayer
51 Look! I’m telling you a mystery. We won’t all sleep; we’re all going to be changed— 52 in a flash, at the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. This is how it will be, you see: the trumpet’s going to sound, the dead will be raised undecaying, and we’re going to be changed. 53 This decaying body must put on the undecaying one; this dying body must put on immortality. 54 When the decaying puts on the undecaying, and the dying puts on the undying, then the saying that has been written will come true:
Death is swallowed up in victory!
55 Death, where’s your victory gone?
Death, where’s your sting gone?
56 The “sting” of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thank God! He gives us the victory, through our Lord Jesus the Messiah.
58 So, my dear family, be firmly fixed, unshakeable, always full to overflowing with the Lord’s work. In the Lord, as you know, the work you’re doing will not be worthless.
Lord of the sabbath
12 At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck ears of corn and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees observed this they said to him, “Look here! Your disciples are doing something that’s not permitted on the sabbath!”
3 “Did you never read what David did?” replied Jesus. “When he and his men were hungry, 4 they went into God’s house and ate the holy bread which neither he nor his men were allowed to eat—only the priests had that right. 5 Or didn’t you read in the law that the priests in the Temple do things on the sabbath which are against sabbath law—and they aren’t guilty? 6 Let me tell you this: something greater than the Temple is here. 7 If you’d known what this saying means:
Mercy, not sacrifice, is what I really want—
you wouldn’t have passed judgment on blameless people. 8 Yes, you see: the son of man is master of the sabbath, too.”
9 He left the place and went into their synagogue, 10 where there was a man with a withered hand.
They put the question to him: “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath?”
(They asked this so that they could frame a charge against him.)
11 “Supposing one of you has just one sheep,” replied Jesus, “and it falls into a ditch on the sabbath. You’ll grab it and haul it out, won’t you? 12 Well then, think how much more important a human being is than a sheep! So, you see, it is permitted to do good on the sabbath.”
13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch your hand out.” He stretched it out, and it was restored to health, just like the other one. 14 But the Pharisees went off and plotted against him, with the intention of doing away with him.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.