Book of Common Prayer

⁸ So you think you now have everything you need and are rich! You think you are kings and do not need us! I wish that you really were kings. Then we would be kings along with you.

⁹ It seems to me that God has put us apostles at the end of the line. We are like men who are to be put to death. The whole world, angels and men, look at us.

¹⁰ We are fools for Christ's sake! But you think Christ has made you wise. We are weak, but you are strong! You have glory, we have shame!

¹¹ Even now we are hungry and thirsty. We need clothes. We are beaten and we have no home.

¹² We work hard with our hands. People curse us, but we bless them. They trouble us much, but we must take it.

¹³ They talk behind our backs, but we still try to win them. People treat us as a dirt pile, the rubbish of the world. And they still do these things.

¹⁴ I do not write these things to make you ashamed. But you are my dear children and I want to teach you.

¹⁵ Even if you have ten thousand people to take care of you as Christians, yet you do not have many fathers. I am your Christian father because I brought you the good news.

¹⁶ So I beg you, do as I do.

¹⁷ That is why I am sending Timothy to you. I love Timothy very much. He is my Christian son. I can trust him. He will tell you again my Christian ways of living. I teach these same ways in every church meeting everywhere.

¹⁸ Some of you are proud of yourselves. You think I am not coming to visit you.

¹⁹ But I will come soon if it is the Lord's will. Then I will find, not the talk of those proud people, but their power.

²⁰ The place where God rules is not a matter of talk, but of power.

²¹ Which do you want? Shall I come to you with a stick to beat you, or shall I come with love and a kind spirit?

⁸ Jesus and his disciples went away to the sea of Galilee. Many people went with Jesus. They came from Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and from the other side of the Jordan River. And many more people came also, a great many from around the cities of Tyre and Sidon. They also had heard about the great works that Jesus had done.

⁹ Jesus saw that the crowd was very big. He told the disciples to have a small boat ready for him so that he would have more room.

¹⁰ He did this because he healed many people. All who were sick tried to touch him.

¹¹ When the bad spirits saw Jesus, they bowed down before him. They shouted, `You are God's Son!'

¹² He told them they must not tell anyone who he was.

¹³ Then Jesus went up on the hill. He wanted some of the people to come with him. So he called them and they came.

¹⁴ He chose twelve disciples to stay with him. He wanted to send them out to other places to tell people God's word.

¹⁵ He gave them power to heal people and to drive bad spirits out of people.

¹⁶ One of the twelve was Simon, whom Jesus called Peter.

¹⁷ He also chose James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee, whom he named Boanerges, which means "Men of Thunder."

¹⁹ He also chose Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon of Canan, and Judas Iscariot, the one who gave Jesus over to people who hated him. Then Jesus and his disciples went home.