Book of Common Prayer

2 There was a time when you were dead. That was because of the bad and the wrong things you did.

² At one time you did those wrong things, just like the people around you. You obeyed the ruler who has the power over things in the air. That ruler is the spirit who is working now in the people who do not obey God.

³ At one time we too all lived like them. We lived to please ourselves. We did what our bodies and our minds wanted us to do. We were people with whom God was angry, just like other people.

⁴ But God was very, very kind. He loved us very, very much.

⁵ We were dead because of the wrong things we had done. He has made us alive with Christ. You have been saved by his love and kindness.

⁶ God raised us from death with Christ Jesus and gave us a place to sit with him in heaven.

⁷ He did this to show us in all times to come how much he can bless people and how kind he is. It was Jesus Christ who brought this kindness to us.

⁸ You have been saved by God's love and kindness because you believed. It was not because of anything you did, but it was a gift from God.

⁹ You were not saved by trying to do what the law says. So no one can be proud about it.

¹⁰ God has made us. In Jesus Christ God made us so that we can do good things. He planned that we should live that way.

²⁴ `The one who learns is not better than his teacher. And the servant is not better than his master.

²⁵ The one who learns should want to be like his teacher. And the servant should want to be like his master. If they say the master belongs to the devil, they will say it all the more about those who work for him.'

²⁶ `So do not be afraid of people. Everything that is hidden will be seen. Everything that is hidden will be known.

²⁷ What I say to you in the dark, tell it in the light. What you hear in secret, shout to others from the tops of the houses.

²⁸ Do not fear people who can kill the body. They cannot kill the spirit. But fear the one who can destroy both spirit and body in hell.

²⁹ Are not two sparrows worth only a small amount of money? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father knowing about it.

³⁰ Even the number of hairs on your head is known.

³¹ So do not fear. You are worth more than many sparrows.'

³² `If anyone tells people that he knows me, I will also tell the Father in heaven that I know him.

³³ But anyone who tells people he does not know me, I will also tell my Father in heaven that I do not know him.'

⁴⁰ `Anyone who takes you in, takes me in. And anyone who takes me in, takes in the one who sent me.

⁴¹ Anyone who takes in a prophet because he is a prophet of God will get a prophet's reward.

⁴² And if any one as a disciple gives a drink of cold water to one of my children, he will not lose his reward. I tell you the truth.'