Book of Common Prayer

³⁰ And why are we in trouble all the time?

³¹ I face death every day! That is true. Just the way it is true that I am proud of you, my brothers. I am proud that you belong to Christ Jesus.

³² I fought against wild animals at Ephesus. If I was thinking only of life on earth, why did I do this? If dead people do not rise, then we might just as well say, `Let us eat and drink because we will die tomorrow.'

³³ Do not be fooled. `If good people keep company with bad people, the good people will become bad too.'

³⁴ Wake up! Do what is right. Stop doing wrong things. Some of you do not know God at all. I say these things to you to make you ashamed.

³⁵ But someone will ask, `How can dead people be raised? What kind of body will they have when they come back from death?'

³⁶ What foolish questions! The seed you put in the ground must die before it can come to life.

³⁷ You do not put a grown-up plant in the ground. You put in a seed, such as corn, wheat, rice, or something like that.

³⁸ God gives the seed the body he wants it to have. He gives a different kind of body to every kind of seed.

³⁹ Not all living bodies are alike. People have one kind of body. Animals have another kind of body. Fish another kind of body. Birds have another kind.

⁴⁰ So too, there are bodies for the sky and bodies for the earth. The bodies for the sky are fine in one way, and the bodies for the earth are fine in another way. They are not alike.

⁴¹ The sun is fine in one way. The moon is fine in another way. The stars are fine in still another way. And one star is fine in a different way from another star.

¹⁶ `What shall I say that the people of today are like? They are like children who sit in the market. They call to the other children.

¹⁷ They say, "We played music for you, but you did not dance. We cried, but you did not cry."

¹⁸ John came. He does not eat or drink much. People say, "He has a bad spirit in him!"

¹⁹ The Son of Man came. He eats and drinks. People say, "This man eats and drinks too much! He is a friend with tax collectors and bad people!" But a man is proved to be wise by what he has done.'

²⁰ Then Jesus began to talk about the towns where he had done most of his big works. He said hard things about the people, because they did not stop their wrong ways and turn back to God.

²¹ He said, `Chorazin! You will have trouble! Bethsaida! You will have trouble! If the big works I did in you had been done in the cities of Tyre and Sidon, the people there would have stopped their wrong ways long ago. They would wear the clothes people wear to show they are sad. They would sit in ashes.

²² But I tell you, on the day when people are judged, you will be punished harder than the people from the cities of Tyre and Sidon.

²³ Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the sky? No, you will go down to death. If the big things I did in you had been done in the city of Sodom, it would be standing now.

²⁴ But I tell you, on the day when people are judged you will be punished harder than the people from Sodom.'