Book of Common Prayer

³ Praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He has blessed us in Christ with every blessing which is in heaven, such as the Spirit gives us.

⁴ Before the world was made, God chose us in Christ. He chose us that we should be holy and good before him.

⁵ Because he loved us, he planned that we should be his own children. It is through Jesus Christ that we are God's children. That is the way God wanted it to be.

⁶ Praise him! His kindness is great and wonderful. We have been accepted by God through Jesus Christ, whom he loves so much.

⁷ Jesus Christ has given his blood [died] to make us free. He has forgiven us for our wrong ways. We have been put right with God freely because of his great kindness.

⁸ He has given us blessing after blessing in his wisdom and understanding.

⁹ He has shown us the plan he had. This plan was what he wanted to do through Christ.

¹⁰ When the right time came, God planned to bring together everything in heaven and on earth, and make Christ head of them all.

¹¹ In and through Christ we will have a share in all that belongs to him. Long ago God chose us for this. And he makes things happen that he wants to do.

¹² We believed in Christ first, so we will praise him because he is so great and wonderful.

¹³ You also believed in Christ when you heard the true message. That message is the good news by which you were saved. You received the Holy Spirit whom God had promised. You were marked as belonging to him.

¹⁴ The Holy Spirit is the first part of what we are to receive from God. This proves that we will get all God has promised. Some day we shall have them all. Praise God! He is very great and wonderful. 15,

19 Jesus came to the city of Jericho and was passing through it.

² A man named Zacchaeus was there. He was the head tax collector, and he was a rich man.

³ He wanted to see who Jesus was but he could not see him because he was a short man and there were many people around him.

⁴ So he ran ahead and climbed into a tree to see Jesus, for he was coming that way.

⁵ When Jesus came to the tree, he looked up. He said, `Zacchaeus, come down right now. I must stay at your house today.'

⁶ So Zacchaeus came down right then. He was glad to have Jesus come in his house.

⁷ When all the people saw this, they did not like it. They said, `He has gone to visit a bad man.'

⁸ Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, `Look, Lord, I will give to the poor people half of all I have. And if I have cheated anyone, I will give him back four times as much as I took.'

⁹ Jesus said to him, `The head of this house has been saved today! He also is a son of Abraham.

¹⁰ The Son of Man came to look for and to save those who are lost.'