Book of Common Prayer

¹¹ Dear brothers, you are people who do not belong to this world. You are like visitors who are on a journey. I beg you, do not do the things your body wants to do. Those things fight against your soul.

¹² Live good lives among the people who do not believe. They may talk about you as if you do wrong things. But when they see the good things you do, they will praise God on the day he comes to help you.

¹³ Obey every officer of the government to please the Lord. Obey the king because he is over all.

¹⁴ Obey the rulers because they are sent by him. They are sent to punish those who do wrong things and to praise those who do good things.

¹⁵ That is what God wants you to do. He wants you to do good things. By doing good things, you will stop foolish people from saying wrong things about you. They say wrong things about you because they do not know you.

¹⁶ You are free people. But do not think, `I am free so I can do wrong things.' You are God's servants.

¹⁷ Respect all men. Love your Christian brothers. Fear God. Respect the king.

¹⁸ Servants, respect and obey your masters in all things. Obey not only those who are good to you. But also obey those who are hard on you.

¹⁹ Maybe a person is punished when he has done nothing wrong. If he takes these troubles to please God, he does a very good thing.

²⁰ What praise will you have if you take a beating when you have done something wrong? But when you do right and are punished, if you take it quietly, God is pleased.

²¹ You have been called to do this because Christ also was punished for you. He showed you what you should do. So do as he did.

²² He did no wrong. And he told no lie.

²³ When people said wrong things to him, he did not say wrong things to them. When he was punished, he did not say, `I will do something to you!' But he trusted in God who judges what is right.

²⁴ Christ in his own body took the wrong things we have done to the cross. He did this so that we would stop our bad ways and live right. Because he was punished, you were healed.

²⁵ Like lost sheep, you were going away from God. But now you have come back to the one who takes care of you and helps you.

¹² `I am telling you to love each other as I have loved you.

¹³ The strongest love anyone can have is this. He will die to save his friends.

¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I tell you to do.

¹⁵ I do not call you servants anymore, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends because you know everything that my Father has told me.

¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you. I gave you a big work to do. That work is to go out and do good things and to make the good things that you do remain strong. If you do that, my Father will do anything you ask in my name.

¹⁷ `Here is the law I gave you. Love each other.'

¹⁸ `If the world hates you, remember that it hated me before it hated you.

¹⁹ If you belonged to this world, the world would love you. But you do not belong to the world. I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

²⁰ Remember what I told you. I said, "The servant is not better than his master." If the people in the world have troubled me, they will also trouble you. If they obey me, they will also obey you.

²¹ They will do all these things to you because you are true to me. They do not know the one who sent me.

²² `I came and spoke to them. If I had not done that, then what they did would not have been a wrong thing. But now they have no excuse for doing it.

²³ The person who hates me hates my Father also.

²⁴ No other person has ever done the work that I have done. If they had, then what they did would not be a wrong thing. But now they have seen me and hated me and my Father also.

²⁵ This has happened in order to make the words of their law book come true. It says, "They hated me for no reason."

²⁶ `I will send the true Spirit to comfort you. He will come from my Father. When he comes, then he will talk about me.

²⁷ You also will talk about me because you have been with me from the time I began my work.'