Book of Common Prayer
Hospitality for God’s people
1 The Elder to beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.
2 Beloved, I pray that all is going well with you, and that you are every bit as healthy physically as you are spiritually. 3 I was absolutely delighted, you see, when some of the family arrived and bore witness to your truthfulness, since clearly you are walking in the truth. 4 Nothing gives me greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
5 Beloved, when you are doing all that you do for family members, even when they are strangers, you are doing a faithful work. 6 These people have borne witness to your love in the presence of the assembly, and you will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. 7 They went out for the sake of the Name, not accepting help from outsiders. 8 We ought to support people like that, so that we may become fellow workers with the truth.
Authority and example
9 I have written something to the assembly. But Diotrephes, who wants to be the most important person there, refuses to acknowledge us. 10 So, then, if I come, I will refer back to what he has done, and the slanderous words he has spoken against us. Not being satisfied with that, he doesn’t welcome family members himself; and, when others want to do so, he forbids them and throws them out of the assembly.
11 Beloved, don’t imitate evil; imitate good! Someone who does good is from God; someone who does evil has not seen God. 12 Demetrius has been well attested by everybody, and by the truth itself. We join in this testimony, and you know that our testimony is true.
13 I have much to write to you, but I don’t want to do it with pen and ink. 14 I am hoping instead to see you very soon, so that we can talk face to face.
15 Peace be with you. All the friends greet you. Greet all the friends by name.
46 So he went once more to Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine.
There was a royal official in Capernaum whose son was ill. 47 He heard that Jesus had come from Judaea into Galilee, and he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, since he was at the point of death.
48 “Unless you see signs and miracles,” replied Jesus, “you won’t ever believe.”
49 “Sir,” replied the official, “come down before my child dies!”
50 “Off you go!” said Jesus. “Your son will live!”
The man believed the word which Jesus had spoken to him, and he set off. 51 But while he was still on his way down to Capernaum, his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well.
52 So he asked them what time he had begun to get better.
“Yesterday afternoon, about one o’clock,” they said. “That’s when the fever left him.”
53 So the father knew that it had happened at the very moment when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live!” He himself believed, and so did all his household.
54 This was now the second sign Jesus did, when he came out of Judaea into Galilee.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.