Book of Common Prayer

¹⁹ And this is how we will know that we are true. This is why we will not be afraid in front of God.

²⁰ Even if our hearts think we are wrong, God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything.

²¹ My dear brothers, if our hearts do not think we are wrong, we will not be afraid in front of God.

²² If we ask God for something, we get it. We get it because we obey his laws. We get it because we do what pleases him.

²³ This is his law. We must believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ. And we must love one another as he told us to do.

²⁴ If anyone obeys his laws, he belongs to God and God belongs to him. God has given us the Holy Spirit. That is how we know that God is with us.

4 My dear brothers, do not trust every spirit. But test the spirits to see if they belong to God. There are many prophets who are not true who have gone out into the world.

² Here is how you can know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that believes that Jesus Christ has come in the body of a man is from God.

³ And every spirit that does not say this about Jesus, does not belong to God. That is the spirit of the one who is against Christ. You have heard that he is coming. And now he is already in the world.

⁴ My children, you belong to God. You have won the victory over those prophets who are not true. You have won because the Spirit that is in you is stronger than the spirit that is in the world.

⁵ Those prophets belong to the world. That is why they teach about things in the world. And that is why the people of the world listen to them.

⁶ But we belong to God. Anyone who knows God listens to us. Anyone who does not belong to God does not listen to us. This is how we know if a spirit is true or not true.

¹⁴ Jesus had the power of the Spirit when he went back to Galilee. People talked about him in all that part of the country.

¹⁵ He taught them in their meeting houses. All the people praised him.

¹⁶ He went to Nazareth where he had grown up. He went to the meeting house as he always did on the Sabbath day. He stood up to read.

¹⁷ A man gave him the book that Isaiah the prophet of God wrote long ago. He opened the book and found the place where it says,

¹⁸ `The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he chose me to tell the good news to poor people. He has sent me to tell the prisoners they can go free, and to tell the blind people they can see. He has sent me to set free those who have been wrongly held down,

¹⁹ and to tell people that the year when the Lord will help them has come.'

²⁰ Then Jesus closed the book and gave it back to the man. He sat down. Everyone in the meeting house was watching him.

²¹ He began to talk to them. He said, `You have heard what the holy writings say. They have come true today.'

²² They all began to talk about him. They were surprised to hear him say such good words. They asked, `Is not this Joseph's son?'

²³ Then Jesus said, `I know that you will say this to me "Doctor, heal yourself. We have heard what you did in Capernaum. Do the same things here in your own country." '

²⁴ And he went on to say, `I tell you the truth. No prophet of God is accepted by the people in his own country.

²⁵ `I tell you the truth. At the time of Elijah, there were many women in Israel whose husbands were dead. There was no rain for three years and six months. All over the country there was great trouble because there was no food.

²⁶ But Elijah was not sent to any of these widowed women in Israel. He was sent to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.

²⁷ `Also while Elisha was the prophet of God, many people in Israel had leprosy [a bad skin disease]. None of them was healed. The only one who was healed was Naaman from the country of Syria.'

²⁸ When they heard this, all the people in the meeting house were very angry.

²⁹ They jumped to their feet and put Jesus out of the town. Their town was built on a hill. They took Jesus out to the top and wanted to throw him down the hill.

³⁰ But Jesus walked out between them and went away.