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.

²⁸ Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the court house. It was early in the day. They themselves did not go into the court house. They did not want to become unclean. They wanted to eat the Passover Feast.

²⁹ Pilate went out to the Jewish leaders and said, `What complaint do you bring against this man?'

³⁰ They said to him, `If he were not a very bad man, then we would not have brought him to you.'

³¹ Pilate said, `Take him and judge him by your own law.' The leaders of the Jews said, `But we are not allowed to kill anyone.'

³² So this is the way the words of Jesus came true. He had said how he was going to die.

³³ Then Pilate went back into the court house again. He called for Jesus and asked him, `Are you the King of the Jews?'

³⁴ Jesus answered, `Do you ask me because you yourself think I am, or do you ask me because others said I am?'

³⁵ Pilate answered, `Am I a Jew? Your own people and the chief priests have brought you here to me. Tell me, what have you done?'

³⁶ Jesus answered him, `I am not a king in this world. If I were, my people would fight so that I would not be given to the Jews. But I am not a king in this world.'

³⁷ So Pilate said, `So you really are a king then? ` Jesus answered, `You say that I am a king. The reason that I was born was that I should tell what is true. That is why I came into the world. Everyone who likes what is true listens to what I say.'

³⁸ Pilate said, `What is truth?' When he had said this, he went out to the Jews again. He told them, `I find nothing wrong in this man.