Book of Common Prayer

5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is God's child. And everyone who loves the Father loves his child.

² This is how we know we love God's children. We love God and we obey his laws.

³ We show that we love God when we obey his laws. His laws are not hard to obey.

⁴ Everyone who is God's child wins a victory over the world. We win because we believe God.

⁵ Who wins a victory over the world? It is only the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

⁶ There was water and there was blood when Jesus Christ came. There was not water only, but there was water and there was blood. The Spirit proves this is true, because the Spirit is true.

⁷ There are three in heaven who prove it is true. They are the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. These three are one.

⁸ There are three on earth who prove it is true. They are the spirit, the water, and the blood. These three all prove the same thing.

⁹ We believe what people prove to us. But when God proves something it is stronger than what people prove. This is what God proved about his Son.

¹⁰ Anyone who believes in God's Son believes what God says about him. Anyone who does not believe God shows that he thinks what God says is not true. He has not believed what God says about his Son.

¹¹ Here is what God says. He has given us life that will last for ever. And this life is in his Son.

¹² So anyone who has the Son has this life. Anyone who does not have the Son of God does not have this life.

⁴⁵ When they saw the things Jesus did, many of the Jews who had come with Mary believed on Him.

⁴⁶ But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

⁴⁷ So the chief priests and the Pharisees met together. They said, `What are we going to do? This man is doing many big works.

⁴⁸ If we do not stop him, everybody will believe on him. Then the Roman rulers will come and break down our holy town and our nation.'

⁴⁹ One of them, Caiaphas, was high priest that year. He said to them, `You know nothing.

⁵⁰ You do not understand. It is better for us if one person dies for the people. Then the whole nation will not be broken down.'

⁵¹ He himself did not understand what he was saying. But he was the high priest that year. God spoke through him to say that Jesus should die for those people.

⁵² Jesus would die, not only for those people, but he would gather together all of God's people who are out in different places.

⁵³ So from that day on they planned to kill Jesus.

⁵⁴ That is why Jesus did not go among the Jews in the open. But he went to another part of the country, to a town called Ephraim. He stayed there with his disciples.