Book of Common Prayer

¹⁷ God made a promise to people. He wanted to show them that he would surely do as he said. So he promised to himself to keep the promise.

¹⁸ These two things cannot be changed and God cannot lie about them. So we can trust him. We have run to him to get what he has promised us.

¹⁹ This promise gives our hearts something to hold on to. It keeps our hearts strong and steady. It will take us into the Holy Place right inside God's house.

²⁰ Jesus has gone there ahead of us. He has been made high priest for ever like Melchizedek.

7 Melchizedek was king of the city of Salem. He was a priest of God who is the greatest of all. Melchizedek met Abraham when Abraham came back from killing some bad kings. And Melchizedek blessed him.

² Abraham divided all that he took away from the kings into ten parts. He gave Melchizedek one part. First, the name Melchizedek means the king who is true and right with God. Then he was king of Salem. That means king of peace.

³ He has no father or mother. The names of the family from which he comes are not written down. It is not written down that he was born or that he died. But, like the Son of God, he stays on being a priest for ever.

⁴ Just think how great he was! Even Abraham, the father of our people, gave him a tenth, one part out of ten, of all he brought back.

⁵ The sons of Levi, who are priests, have the right by law to take a tenth of what the people have. These people are their own brothers. They also are Abraham's children.

⁶ But Melchizedek was not from Levi's family. Yet he took a tenth of what Abraham had. And he blessed Abraham, to whom God made the promise.

⁷ Everyone knows this is true. The person who is blessed is not so great as the person who blesses him.

⁸ Here, priests take their tenth, but they are people who will die one day. But Melchizedek, who took his tenth, never dies. The holy writings say it is so.

⁹ And we say that Levi, the priest who takes the tenth from the people, gave his tenth through Abraham.

¹⁰ He was not yet born when Melchizedek met Abraham.

²⁷ The woman left her water-pot and went back to the town.

²⁸ She said to the people, `Come, I will show you a man who has told me everything I have done. Can this be the Christ?'

²⁹ The people left the town and went to him.

³⁰ While they were on the way coming to Jesus, the disciples asked him, `Teacher, will you please eat.'

³¹ Jesus said to them, `I have food that you do not know about.'

³² So the disciples asked one another, `Has anyone brought him food to eat?'

³³ Jesus said to them, `My food is to obey the one who sent me and to finish his work.

³⁴ Do you not say, "In four months it will be harvest time"? Listen, I say. Look up and see the fields. The harvest is ready to cut now.

³⁵ The one who gathers the harvest receives a reward for it. He gathers a harvest that will live for ever. Then the one who sows and the one who gathers will both be happy.

³⁶ This saying is true here: "One sows and another gathers."

³⁷ I sent you to gather what you did not help to plant. Other people have worked hard and you have been helped through their work.'

³⁸ Many of the people of the town believed in Jesus because of what the woman told them. She said, `He told me everything I have done.'

³⁹ When the people from Samaria came, they begged him to stay with them. So he stayed with them for two days.

⁴⁰ Many more people believed in Jesus because of his own word.

⁴¹ They said to the woman, `Now we believe, not because of what you told us, but because of what he himself has told us. We know it is true. This is the Saviour of the world.'

⁴² Two days after this, Jesus left Samaria and went to Galilee.