Book of Common Prayer

¹⁶ After this, there came to the king two women who were prostitutes. After presenting themselves to him, ¹⁷ one of the women said, “My lord, I and this woman live in the same house; and when she was in the house, I gave birth to a baby. ¹⁸ Three days after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. We were there together; there was no one else with us in the house except the two of us. ¹⁹ During the night this woman’s child died, because she rolled over on top of it. ²⁰ So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from next to me, while your servant was sleeping, and put it in her arms; and she laid her dead child in my arms. ²¹ When I awoke in the morning to feed my child from my breast, there it was, dead. But when I took a closer look later in the morning, why, it wasn’t my son at all — not the one I gave birth to!” ²² The other woman broke in, “No! The living one is my son, and the dead one is your son!” The first one said, “No! The dead one is your son and the living one is my son!” This is how they spoke in the presence of the king.

²³ Then the king said, “This woman says, ‘The living one is my son; your son is the dead one’; while the other says, ‘No, the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.’ ²⁴ Bring me a sword,” said the king. They brought a sword to the king. ²⁵ The king said, “Cut the living child in two; give half to the one and half to the other.” ²⁶ At this, the woman to whom the living child belonged addressed the king, because she felt so strongly toward her son: “Oh, my lord, give her the living child; you mustn’t kill it!” But the other one said, “It will be neither yours nor mine. Divide it up!” ²⁷ Then the king answered, “Give the living child to the first woman, don’t kill it, because she is its mother.” ²⁸ All Isra’el heard of the decision the king had made and held the king in awe, for they saw that God’s wisdom was in him, enabling him to render justice properly.

²⁷ It was the fourteenth night, and we were still being driven about in the Adriatic Sea, when around midnight the sailors sensed that we were nearing land. ²⁸ So they dropped a plumbline and found the water one hundred and twenty feet deep. A little farther on, they took another sounding and found it ninety feet. ²⁹ Fearing we might run on the rocks, they let out four anchors from the stern and prayed for daylight to come.

³⁰ At this point, the crew made an attempt to abandon ship — they lowered the lifeboat into the sea, pretending that they were about to let out some anchors from the bow. ³¹ Sha’ul said to the officer and the soldiers, “Unless these men remain aboard the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved.” ³² Then the soldiers cut the ropes holding the lifeboat and let it go.

³³ Just before daybreak, Sha’ul urged them all to eat, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day you have been in suspense, going hungry, eating nothing. ³⁴ Therefore I advise you to take some food; you need it for your own survival. For not one of you will lose so much as a hair from his head.” ³⁵ When he had said this, he took bread, said the b’rakhah to God in front of everyone, broke it and began to eat. ³⁶ With courage restored, they all ate some food themselves. ³⁷ Altogether there were 276 of us on board the ship. ³⁸ After they had eaten all they wanted, they lightened the ship by dumping the grain into the sea.

³⁹ When day broke, they didn’t recognize the land; but they noticed a bay with a sand beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could. ⁴⁰ So they cut away the anchors and left them in the sea; at the same time, they loosened the ropes that held the rudders out of the water. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and headed for the beach. ⁴¹ But they encountered a place where two currents meet, and ran the vessel aground on the sandbar there. The bow stuck and would not move, while the pounding of the surf began to break up the stern.

⁴² At this point the soldiers’ thought was to kill the prisoners, so that none of them would swim off and escape. ⁴³ But the officer, wanting to save Sha’ul, kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to throw themselves overboard first and head for shore, ⁴⁴ and the rest to use planks or whatever they could find from the ship. Thus it was that everyone reached land safely.

¹² On the first day for matzah, when they slaughtered the lamb for Pesach, Yeshua’s talmidim asked him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare your Seder?” ¹³ He sent two of his talmidim with these instructions: “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him; ¹⁴ and whichever house he enters, tell him that the Rabbi says, ‘Where is the guest room for me, where I am to eat the Pesach meal with my talmidim?’ ¹⁵ He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make the preparations there.” ¹⁶ The talmidim went off, came to the city and found things just as he had told them they would be; and they prepared the Seder.

¹⁷ When evening came, Yeshua arrived with the Twelve. ¹⁸ As they were reclining and eating, Yeshua said, “Yes! I tell you that one of you is going to betray me.” ¹⁹ They became upset and began asking him, one after the other, “You don’t mean me, do you?” ²⁰ “It’s one of the Twelve,” he said to them, “someone dipping matzah in the dish with me. ²¹ For the Son of Man will die, just as the Tanakh says he will; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for him had he never been born!”

²² While they were eating, Yeshua took a piece of matzah, made the b’rakhah, broke it, gave it to them and said, “Take it! This is my body.” ²³ Also he took a cup of wine, made the b’rakhah, and gave it to them; and they all drank. ²⁴ He said to them, “This is my blood, which ratifies the New Covenant, my blood shed on behalf of many people. ²⁵ Yes! I tell you, I will not drink this ‘fruit of the vine’ again until the day I drink new wine in the Kingdom of God.”

²⁶ After singing the Hallel, they went out to the Mount of Olives.