Book of Common Prayer

Genuine faith and sure hope

1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus the Messiah, to God’s chosen ones who live as foreigners among the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, ² who have been set aside in advance by God the father, through the sanctification of the spirit, for obedience and for sprinkling with the blood of Jesus the Messiah. May grace and peace be poured out lavishly on you!

³ May God be blessed, God the father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah! His mercy is abundant, and so he has become our father in a second birth into a living hope through the resurrection from the dead of Jesus the Messiah. ⁴ This has brought us into an incorruptible inheritance, which nothing can stain or diminish. At the moment it is kept safe for you in the heavens, ⁵ while you are being kept safe by God’s power, through faith, for a rescue that is all ready and waiting to be revealed in the final time.

⁶ That is why you celebrate! Yes, it may well be necessary that, for a while, you may have to suffer trials and tests of all sorts. ⁷ But this is so that the true value of your faith may be discovered. It is worth more than gold, which is tested by fire even though it can be destroyed. The result will be praise, glory and honor when Jesus the Messiah is revealed. ⁸ You love him, even though you’ve never seen him. And even though you don’t see him, you believe in him, and celebrate with a glorified joy that goes beyond anything words can say, ⁹ since you are receiving the proper goal of your faith, namely, the rescue of your lives.

Ransomed by grace

¹⁰ The prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be given to you searched and inquired about this rescue. ¹¹ They asked what sort of time it would be, the time that the Messiah’s spirit within them was indicating when speaking of the Messiah’s sufferings and subsequent glory. ¹² It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, when they were ministering these things—things which have now been announced to you by the holy spirit who was sent from heaven, through those who preached the good news to you. The angels long to gaze on these things!

The question about divorce

19 So this is what happened next. When Jesus had finished saying all this, he went away from Galilee and came to the region of Judaea across the Jordan. ² Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

³ Some Pharisees approached him with a trick question.

“Is it lawful,” they asked, “for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?”

⁴ “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that the creator from the beginning ‘made them male and female’? ⁵ And this is what he said: ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ ⁶ As a result, they are no longer two, but one flesh. So humans shouldn’t split up what God has joined together.”

⁷ “So then,” they asked, “why did Moses lay it down that one should give the woman a certificate of divorce and make the separation legal?”

⁸ “Moses gave you this instruction about how to divorce your wives,” replied Jesus, “because your hearts were hard. But that’s not how it was at the beginning. ⁹ Let me tell you this: anyone who divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery.”

Marriage, celibacy and children

¹⁰ The disciples said to Jesus, “If that’s the situation of a man with his wife, it would be better not to marry!”

¹¹ “Not everyone can accept this word,” replied Jesus; “only the people it’s given to. ¹² You see, there are some eunuchs who are that way from birth. There are some who have been made eunuchs by others. And there are some who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. If anyone can receive this, let them do so.”