Book of Common Prayer

The Flood Begins

7 Then the Lord said to Noah, “I have seen that you are a good man, even among the evil people of this time. So gather your family, and all of you go into the boat. ² Get seven pairs (seven males and seven females) of every kind of clean animal. And get one pair (one male and one female) of every other animal on the earth. Lead all these animals into the boat with you. ³ Get seven pairs (seven males and seven females) of all the birds. This will allow all these animals to continue living on the earth after the other animals are destroyed. ⁴ Seven days from now, I will send much rain on the earth. It will rain for 40 days and 40 nights, and I will wipe everything off the face of the earth. I will destroy everything I made.” ⁵ Noah did everything the Lord told him to do.

⁶ Noah was 600 years old at the time the rains came. ⁷ He and his family went into the boat to be saved from the flood. His wife and his sons and their wives were on the boat with him. ⁸ All the clean animals, all the other animals on the earth, the birds, and everything that crawls on the earth ⁹ went into the boat with Noah. These animals went into the boat in groups of two, male and female, just as God commanded. ¹⁰ Seven days later the flood started. The rain began to fall on the earth.

¹⁷ Water flooded the earth for 40 days. The water began rising and lifted the boat off the ground. ¹⁸ The water continued to rise, and the boat floated on the water high above the earth. ¹⁹ The water rose so much that even the highest mountains were covered by the water. ²⁰ The water continued to rise above the mountains. The water was more than 20 feet^[a] above the highest mountain.

^21-22 Every living thing on earth died—every man and woman, every bird, and every kind of animal. All the many kinds of animals and all the things that crawl on the ground died. Every living, breathing thing on dry land died. ²³ In this way God wiped the earth clean—he destroyed every living thing on the earth—every human, every animal, everything that crawls, and every bird. All that was left was Noah and his family and the animals that were with him in the boat.

The Unity of the Body

4 So, as a prisoner for the Lord, I beg you to live the way God’s people should live, because he chose you to be his. ² Always be humble and gentle. Be patient and accept each other with love. ³ You are joined together with peace through the Spirit. Do all you can to continue as you are, letting peace hold you together. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, and God chose you to have one hope. ⁵ There is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. ⁶ There is one God and Father of us all, who rules over everyone. He works through all of us and in all of us.

⁷ Christ gave each one of us a special gift. Everyone received what he wanted to give them. ⁸ That is why the Scriptures say,

⁹ When it says, “He went up,” what does it mean? It means that he first came down low to earth. ¹⁰ So Christ came down, and he is the same one who went up. He went up above the highest heaven in order to fill everything with himself. ¹¹ And that same Christ gave these gifts to people: He made some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to go and tell the Good News, and some to care for and teach God’s people.^{[a] 12} Christ gave these gifts to prepare God’s holy people for the work of serving, to make the body of Christ stronger. ¹³ This work must continue until we are all joined together in what we believe and in what we know about the Son of God. Our goal is to become like a full-grown man—to look just like Christ and have all his perfection.

¹⁴ Then we will no longer be like babies. We will not be people who are always changing like a ship that the waves carry one way and then another. We will not be influenced by every new teaching we hear from people who are trying to deceive us—those who make clever plans and use every kind of trick to fool others into following the wrong way. ¹⁵ No, we will speak the truth with love. We will grow to be like Christ in every way. He is the head, ¹⁶ and the whole body depends on him. All the parts of the body are joined and held together, with each part doing its own work. This causes the whole body to grow and to be stronger in love.

Many Follow Jesus

⁷ Jesus went away with his followers to the lake. A large crowd of people from Galilee followed them. ⁸ Many also came from Judea, from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from the area across the Jordan River, and from the area around Tyre and Sidon. These people came because they heard about all that Jesus was doing.

⁹ Jesus saw how many people there were, so he told his followers to get a small boat and make it ready for him. He wanted the boat so that the crowds of people could not push against him. ¹⁰ He had healed many of them, so all the sick people were pushing toward him to touch him. ¹¹ Some people had evil spirits inside them. When the evil spirits saw Jesus, they bowed before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!” ¹² But Jesus gave the spirits a strong warning not to tell anyone who he was.

Jesus Chooses His Twelve Apostles^(A)

¹³ Then Jesus went up on a hill and invited those he wanted to go with him. So they joined him there. ¹⁴ And he chose twelve men and called them apostles. He wanted these twelve men to be with him, and he wanted to send them to other places to tell people God’s message. ¹⁵ He also wanted them to have the power to force demons out of people. ¹⁶ These are the names of the twelve men Jesus chose: