Book of Common Prayer

1 I am Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. He called me to be an apostle and to tell God's good news.

² Through his prophets long ago God promised this good news to people, in the holy writings.

³ The good news was about his Son. He is Jesus Christ our Lord. He was a man born in David's family.

⁴ He came alive from death. That showed he was God's Son. He had God's power. God's Holy Spirit did all this.

⁵ This same Jesus Christ was kind to me. And he made me an apostle. I am sent in his name so that people in all nations will obey him.

⁶ You are some of them. You were called to belong to Jesus Christ.

⁷ I send greetings to all the Christians who live in the city of Rome. God loves you and has called you to be his people. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ bless you. In their kindness may they give you peace.

⁸ People in all the world have heard that you believe. I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you.

⁹ God knows that I always talk to him about you. I worship him in my heart while I tell the good news about his Son.

¹⁰ I ask God that in some way now I may be able to visit you, if he wishes me to do it.

¹¹ I want very much to see you. I want to give you some gift from the Holy Spirit to make you stronger.

¹² I mean to say that we will both be helped. I will be helped because you believe, and you will be helped because I believe.

¹³ My brothers, I want you to know that I have often planned to come to you. But something has stopped me until now. I planned to come so that I might see good things happen among you. I have done this in the other nations which are not Jewish.

¹⁴ This is something I must do for the Greek people and for all other people. I must do it for people who are wise and for people who are not wise.

¹⁵ That is why I want so much to tell the good news to you people in the city of Rome also.

¹⁴ They came to the people. A man came and kneeled in front of Jesus.

¹⁵ He said, `Sir, help my son. A bad spirit is in him and he has much trouble. Often he falls into the fire, and often he falls into the water.

¹⁶ I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.'

¹⁷ Jesus said, `You people today do not believe. You have turned away from God. How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.'

¹⁸ Jesus talked to the bad spirit and he came out of the boy. The boy was healed.

¹⁹ Then the disciples came to Jesus alone. They asked him, `Why could we not drive the bad spirit out?'

²⁰ Jesus said to them, `Because you do not believe enough. I tell you the truth. If your strength to believe were as much as a little mustard seed, you could say to this hill, "Go, move over to that place!" And it would move. Nothing is too hard for you to do.

²¹ But this kind of bad spirit does not come out of a person unless people ask God and fast [do not eat food for a time].'