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.

¹⁵ All of us who are grown-up Christians should feel this way. And if you do not think this way, God will show you the right way.

¹⁶ But no matter how far we have gone, we must keep on going that way. And let us do it together, having the same things in mind.

3 After some years had passed, John the Baptizer came and told God's word in the desert of Judea.

² He said, `Stop doing wrong things and turn back to God! The kingdom of heaven is almost here.'

³ This is the man that Isaiah the prophet of God spoke about long ago. He said, `A man is calling in the wilderness, "Make the way ready for the Lord. Make the road straight for him." '

⁴ John wore clothes made of camel's hair and a leather belt. He ate locusts and wild honey.

⁵ People went to him from Jerusalem, from all of Judea, and from all the country near the Jordan River.

⁶ He baptised them in the Jordan River when they said how sorry they were for the wrong things they had done.

⁷ Many of the Pharisee group and the Sadducee group came to him to be baptised. But when he saw them, he said to them, `You family of snakes! Who told you to run away from God's anger that is coming?

⁸ Stop your wrong ways to show that you have turned back to God.

⁹ Do not think you can say to your-selves, "Abraham is our father." I tell you, God can make children for Abraham from these stones.

¹⁰ The axe is ready to cut down the trees. Every tree that does not have good fruit is cut down and thrown into a fire.

¹¹ `I baptise you with water when you stop your wrong ways. But another person is coming after me. He is greater than I am. I am not good enough to take off his shoes. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

¹² He has a cleaning fan in his hand and will fan his grain very clean. He will put the grain into his storehouse. But he will burn the chaff in the fire that never dies.'