Book of Common Prayer

2 I made up my mind that I would not go to visit you again if I had to make you sad.

² For if I make you sad, who is going to make me glad? No one, but the one I made sad.

³ That is why I wrote the letter. I did not want to come and be made sad by those who should make me glad. I am sure that what makes me glad makes you all glad too.

⁴ When I wrote to you, I was in great trouble and my heart was very heavy. I cried with many tears. I did not want you to be sad, but I just wanted to let you know that I love you very much who made me sad. It was not only me that he made sad. It was every one of you, in a way. I say `in a way' because I do not want to be too strong in what I say.

⁵ That man has been punished enough by what most of you did to him.

⁶ So now, you ought to forgive him and comfort him. If you do not, then he may be so sad he cannot bear it.

⁷ So I beg you, show your love to him again.

⁸ Here is why I wrote to you. I wanted to test you to find out if you obey me in all matters.

⁹ Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. And if I have had anything to forgive, I have already forgiven it for your sakes, just as if we were standing before Christ.

¹⁰ I have done this so that Satan will not get ahead of us. We know his tricks. of Troas to tell the good news of Christ, the door was open for me to work for the Lord.

¹¹ But my mind was troubled because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to the people there and went on to the country of Macedonia. Christ. And Christ leads us to victory every time. To know Christ is like a sweet smell. And God lets us carry that sweet smell of his truth everywhere.

12 Jesus then began to speak to the disciples in stories. `A man planted a farm of vines for growing fruit called grapes. He put a fence of small trees around it. He dug a place to press the juice from the fruit. He built a high house from which men could watch over the farm. Then he let some men pay to use it and went to a country far away.

² At harvest time the owner sent one his servants to get some of the fruit from the farm.

³ The men took the servant and beat him. They sent him away without any fruit.

⁴ He sent another servant. They hurt this one also, and cut his head. The things they did to him were very wrong.

⁵ So he sent another servant. The men killed him. He sent many others, and the men beat some and killed others.

⁶ There was one left. He was his own son. He sent him last. He said, "They will respect my son."

⁷ But the men said to each other, "This is the one who will have everything when his father dies. Let us kill him. Then everything will belong to us."

⁸ They killed him and threw his body outside the farm.

⁹ `What will the man who owned the farm do to them? He will come back and kill the men in the farm. And he will give the farm to other men to use.

^10-11 ave you not read this writing: "The stone which the builders would not use is now the chief stone of the corner. The Lord did this. It looks wonderful to us."?'