Book of Common Prayer

Praise the Lord!^[a]

God is good, so thank him^[b]

God makes his people strong^[a]

Hallelujah, God helps weak people^[b]

God gives water out of a rock

17 Then all the Israelites continued to travel on from the desert called Sin. They moved from one place to another, as the Lord told them. When they arrived at Rephidim, they put up their tents there. But there was no water for the people to drink. ² Because of this, the people quarrelled with Moses. They said, ‘Give us water to drink!’ Moses said to them, ‘You should not quarrel with me! You should not try to test the Lord!’

³ But the people needed water to drink. They complained against Moses. They said, ‘You should not have brought us out of Egypt! You will kill us and our children and our animals. We will all die, because we have no water to drink.’

⁴ Then Moses called to the Lord for help. He said, ‘What can I do with these people? They will soon be throwing stones at me to kill me.’

⁵ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Take some of the leaders of the Israelites with you and go in front of the people. Take your stick in your hand. Take the stick that you used to hit the Nile river. Now go! ⁶ I will stand there, in front of you, by the rock at Sinai. Hit the rock with your stick, and water will come out of it. Then the people can drink.’ So Moses did this, while the leaders of the Israelites watched him.

⁷ Moses called that place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled there. They tried to test the Lord to see what he would do. They said, ‘Let us see if the Lord is really with us. Will he help us, or not?’^[a]

Who God's Son, Jesus Christ, is

¹⁵ We cannot see God. But Jesus Christ shows us completely who God is. Even before God made anything, Jesus was already there as God's Son who rules everything. ¹⁶ When God created everything, it was his Son who did it. His Son made everything that is on earth and in heaven. He created everything that we can see, as well as the things that we cannot see. He made rulers and leaders. He made everything that has power and authority. God gave his Son the authority to create everything, so that his Son would receive praise. ¹⁷ God's Son was there before anything else was there. And now he causes everything to continue in its proper place. ¹⁸ The church is like Christ's body and he is its head.^[a] He is where it all begins. As God's special Son, he was the first person who became alive again after death.^[b] As a result, Christ is first and most important in all things.

¹⁹ God chose to put his nature in Christ completely. ²⁰ He decided that Christ would die on the cross as a sacrifice. In that way, God would bring all things back to himself. Then everything could live in peace with God. That includes everything on the earth and everything in heaven.

²¹ As for you, you were far away from God at one time. You thought bad things and you did bad things. As a result, you were God's enemies. ²² But now you have become God's friends. This happened because Christ's human body died on the cross. As a result, God has brought you to himself. As you stand in front of him, you are completely good and clean inside. He sees nothing in you that is bad.

²³ But you must continue to believe God's true message. Do not turn away from it. Continue to trust God, as you did when you first heard the good news. People have told this good news to everyone all over the world. And God has chosen me, Paul, as his servant to tell this good news.

Streams of water that give life to people

³⁷ The last day of the festival was the most important day. On that day, Jesus stood up and he spoke with a loud voice. He said, ‘If anyone is thirsty, he should come to me so that he may drink. ³⁸ It says in the Bible, “God will cause streams of water to pour out from anyone who believes in me. Water that gives life will come out from inside that person.” ’ ³⁹ Jesus was speaking about God's Spirit, who would come to people some time after that. Those people who believed in Jesus would receive God's Spirit at that later time. But God had not yet given his Spirit to people, because he had not yet raised Jesus back up to heaven.^[a]

The people argue about who Jesus is

⁴⁰ The people in the crowd heard Jesus say these words. Some of them said, ‘Surely this man must be the Prophet from God that we have been waiting for!’ ⁴¹ Other people said, ‘This man is the Messiah.’ But some other people said, ‘The Messiah will not come from Galilee! ⁴² The Bible says that the Messiah will come from King David's family.^[b] He will come from Bethlehem, the town where David lived.’ ⁴³ In this way the people had different thoughts about Jesus. ⁴⁴ Some people wanted to take hold of him. But nobody could put their hands on him to take him away.

⁴⁵ The officers returned to the leaders of the priests and the Pharisees. The leaders asked their officers, ‘Why did you not bring Jesus here?’ ⁴⁶ The officers answered, ‘Nobody has ever spoken great things like this man speaks.’ ⁴⁷ The Pharisees replied, ‘He seems to have made you believe his lies! ⁴⁸ None of the Pharisees or our leaders believe in him. ⁴⁹ But this crowd does not know what God's Law teaches. God will surely punish them.’

⁵⁰ Nicodemus spoke to them. He himself was one of the Pharisees. He was the man who had gone to speak with Jesus before. He said, ⁵¹ ‘We must find out first what this man has done. Then we can decide if it is right to punish him. Our law says that we must listen to him first.’ ⁵² They answered Nicodemus, ‘Perhaps you come from Galilee, as well as him! Study what the Bible teaches. You will learn that no prophet of God ever comes from Galilee.’