Book of Common Prayer

⁴ When the girls and officials attending Ester came and informed her of this, the queen became deeply distressed. She sent clothes for Mordekhai to wear instead of his sackcloth, but he wouldn’t accept them. ⁵ So Ester summoned Hatakh, one of the king’s officials attending her, and instructed him to go to Mordekhai and find out what this was all about and why. ⁶ Hatakh went out to Mordekhai in the open space in front of the King’s Gate, ⁷ and Mordekhai told him everything that had happened to him and exactly how much silver Haman had promised to put in the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. ⁸ He also gave him a copy of the decree for their destruction issued in Shushan; so that he could show it to Ester, explain it to her, and then instruct her to approach the king, intercede with him and implore his favor on behalf of her people. ⁹ Hatakh returned and told Ester what Mordekhai had said.

¹⁰ Then Ester spoke to Hatakh and gave him this message for Mordekhai: ¹¹ “All the king’s officials, as well as the people in the royal provinces, know that if anyone, man or woman, approaches the king in the inner courtyard without being summoned, there is just one law — he must be put to death — unless the king holds out the gold scepter for him to remain alive; and I haven’t been summoned to the king for the past thirty days.”

¹² Upon being told what Ester had said, Mordekhai ¹³ asked them to give Ester this answer: “Don’t suppose that merely because you happen to be in the royal palace you will escape any more than the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you fail to speak up now, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from a different direction; but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows whether you didn’t come into your royal position precisely for such a time as this.”

¹⁵ Ester had them return this answer to Mordekhai: ¹⁶ “Go, assemble all the Jews to be found in Shushan, and have them fast for me, neither eating nor drinking for three days, night and day; also I and the girls attending me will fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” ¹⁷ Then Mordekhai went his way and did everything Ester had ordered him to do.

18 After this, Sha’ul left Athens and went to Corinth, ² where he met a Jewish man named Aquila, originally from Pontus but having recently come with his wife Priscilla from Italy, because Claudius had issued a decree expelling all the Jews from Rome. Sha’ul went to see them; ³ and because he had the same trade as they, making tents, he stayed on with them; and they worked together.

⁴ Sha’ul also began carrying on discussions every Shabbat in the synagogue, where he tried to convince both Jews and Greeks. ⁵ But after Sila and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Sha’ul felt pressed by the urgency of the message and testified in depth to the Jews that Yeshua is the Messiah. ⁶ However when they set themselves against him and began hurling insults, he shook out his clothes and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! For my part, I am clean; from now on, I will go to the Goyim!”

⁷ So he left them and went into the home of a “God-fearer” named Titius Justus, whose house was right next door to the synagogue. ⁸ Crispus, the president of the synagogue, came to trust in the Lord, along with his whole household; also many of the Corinthians who heard trusted and were immersed.

⁹ One night, in a vision, the Lord said to Sha’ul, “Don’t be afraid, but speak right up, and don’t stop, ¹⁰ because I am with you. No one will succeed in harming you, for I have many people in this city.” ¹¹ So Sha’ul stayed there for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.

1 Dear Theophilos:

Concerning the matters that have taken place among us, many people have undertaken to draw up accounts ² based on what was handed down to us by those who from the start were eyewitnesses and proclaimers of the message. ³ Therefore, Your Excellency, since I have carefully investigated all these things from the beginning, it seemed good to me that I too should write you an accurate and ordered narrative, ⁴ so that you might know how well-founded are the things about which you have been taught.

3 In the fifteenth year of Emperor Tiberius’ rule; when Pontius Pilate was governor of Y’hudah, Herod ruler of the Galil, his brother Philip ruler of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, ² with ‘Anan and Kayafa being the cohanim g’dolim; the word of God came to Yochanan Ben-Z’kharyah in the desert. ³ He went all through the Yarden region proclaiming an immersion involving turning to God from sin in order to be forgiven. ⁴ It was just as had been written in the book of the sayings of the prophet Yesha‘yahu,

⁷ Therefore, Yochanan said to the crowds who came out to be immersed by him, “You snakes! Who warned you to escape the coming punishment? ⁸ If you have really turned from your sins, produce fruit that will prove it! And don’t start saying to yourselves, ‘Avraham is our father’! For I tell you that God can raise up for Avraham sons from these stones! ⁹ Already the axe is at the root of the trees, ready to strike; every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown in the fire!”

¹⁰ The crowds asked Yochanan, “So then, what should we do?” ¹¹ He answered, “Whoever has two coats should share with somebody who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.” ¹² Tax-collectors also came to be immersed; and they asked him, “Rabbi, what should we do?” ¹³ “Collect no more than the government assesses,” he told them. ¹⁴ Some soldiers asked him, “What about us? What should we do?” To them he said, “Don’t intimidate anyone, don’t accuse people falsely, and be satisfied with your pay.”