Book of Common Prayer

²⁰ Where are your wise people, the men who know books, the men who like to talk about the things of this world? God has shown that the clever things of this world are nothing.

²¹ God is wise. But the people of the world were not wise enough to know God. So he chose to save people who believe the good news that we tell them, even though the good news may seem to be foolish.

²² The Jews say, `We must see a sign.' Those who are not Jews say, `We want something we can understand.'

²³ But we tell people about Christ who died on a cross. The leaders of the Jews do not like this, and those who are not Jews laugh at it.

²⁴ But some have been called by God. They are chosen, both Jews and other people. Christ is God's power to save them. This shows how wise he is.

²⁵ When God seems foolish, he is more wise than men. When God seems weak, he is stronger than men.

²⁶ My brothers, remember what you were when God chose you. Not many of you were wise by the way people look at it. Not many of you had power. Not many of you came from a family with a big name.

²⁷ But God chose things that look foolish to the people of the world. He has used those foolish things to put the wise people to shame. God chose the weak things to put to shame the strong people.

²⁸ And God chose the small things, things that people despise. Yes, he chose even the things which seem to be nothing. He did this to destroy the big things.

²⁹ He did this so that people would not be proud before God.

³⁰ You are God's children through Christ Jesus. Christ came from God and made us wise. He put us right with God. He made us holy. He set us free from our wrong ways.

³¹ Just as the holy writings say, `No one should be proud of anything but of the Lord.'

¹⁴ John was put in prison. Then Jesus went to Galilee. He told people the good news of God's kingdom.

¹⁵ `The time has come,' he said. `The kingdom of God is here. Stop your wrong ways, turn back to God and believe the good news.'

¹⁶ Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee. There he saw Simon and his brother Andrew. They were throwing a fishing net into the water. Their work was to catch fish.

¹⁷ Jesus said to them, `Come with me. The work I give you will be to catch people.'

¹⁸ Right away they left their nets and went with him.

¹⁹ Jesus went on from there and saw James and his brother John. Their father's name was Zebedee. They were in a boat mending their nets.

²⁰ Jesus called them. Right away they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the workmen and went with Jesus.

²¹ They went to the town of Capernaum. As soon as it was the Sabbath day, Jesus went into their meeting house and taught the people.

²² They were very much surprised at his teaching because he taught them as if he had the right to teach them. He did not teach them like their teachers called scribes.

²³ A man who had a bad spirit in him was in the meeting house at that time.

²⁴ He called out, `Jesus of Nazareth, what do you want to do to us? Have you come to kill us? I know who you are. You are the Holy One of God.'

²⁵ Jesus said to the spirit, `Be quiet! Come out of him!'

²⁶ The bad spirit threw the man around. It called out loud and then it came out of the man.

²⁷ The people were all surprised. They said one to another, `What is this? Is not this a new teaching? He tells the bad spirits what to do and even they obey him'

²⁸ The people all around Galilee heard right away about Jesus.