Book of Common Prayer

3 Now, my brothers, I say be glad for what the Lord has done for you. It is not hard for me to write the same things to you over and over. And it is good for you.

² Watch out for those teachers who are like dogs. Watch out for those teachers who do wrong things. And watch out for those teachers who want you to have the mark of a Jew cut in your bodies.

³ We have God's Spirit and we worship God in the Spirit. So we are the people who have the mark of God. Christ Jesus is our reason for being joyful. We do not trust in having a mark cut in our bodies.

⁴ And yet I could trust in things about myself if I wanted to. If any other man thinks that he has something about himself to trust in, I have more things.

⁵ I had the mark of a Jew cut in my body when I was eight days old. I was born of the people of Israel. I belong to the family of Benjamin, so I was born a true Jew. I was a Pharisee, so I obeyed the Jewish law very carefully.

⁶ I was so full of my own ideas that I sent Christians to prison. But I was a good man in the way the Jewish law calls a man good.

⁷ But all these things that might have helped me, I call them all nothing, because of Christ.

⁸ Yes, I call them all nothing, because to know Christ Jesus my Lord is much better. It is for his sake that I have given them all up and call them just dirt. I have lost them but gained Christ.

⁹ I do it so that I will belong to him. I do not want to be called good because of the Jewish law. But I want to be made good by believing in Christ. I want to be put right with God through faith alone.

¹⁰ I want to know Christ. I want to know the power that raised him from death. I want to have a part in his trouble. I want to be like him in his death.

¹¹ Then I hope to be raised from death.

¹² I do not mean to say that I have got there yet, or that I am perfect yet. But I am trying hard to get there, because that is why Christ saved me.

¹³ My brothers, I do not yet think that I have got all the things of Christ. But there is one thing that I am doing. I forget what is behind me and reach out to what is ahead of me.

¹⁴ Like a man running a race, I try hard to reach the line so that I will receive the prize. Because we belong to Christ Jesus, God is calling us to receive this prize that he has for us in heaven.

⁹ Many of the Jews knew that Jesus was at Bethany. So they came because Jesus was there. But they also came to see Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from death.

¹⁰ The chief priests planned to kill Lazarus also.

¹¹ Many of the Jews left the priests and believed in Jesus, because of Lazarus.

¹² The next day Jesus went to Jerusalem. Many people who were at the feast heard that he was coming.

¹³ So they took branches of palm trees and went to meet him. They shouted, `Praise God! God bless the King of Israel! He is coming in the name of the Lord!'

¹⁴ Then Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it. He did as the holy writings say,

¹⁵ `Do not fear, people of Jerusalem. Your King is coming. He will be riding on a young donkey.'

¹⁶ His disciples did not understand this at first. But when God had made Jesus great, then they remembered what the holy writings said about him. They remembered that people had done these things to him.

¹⁷ Many people were with Jesus when he called Lazarus out of the grave and raised him from death. They had talked about what he did.

¹⁸ That is why many people went out to meet Jesus. They had heard about the big work he did.

¹⁹ The Pharisees said to each other, `See, you cannot stop this thing. People everywhere are going after him.'