Book of Common Prayer

³¹ So what shall we say about this? If God is on our side, who can be against us?

³² He did not keep his own Son, but gave him up for us all. Because he has given him to us, will he not also give us all other things?

³³ Who will say anything against God's chosen people? For it is God himself who says they have been put right with him.

³⁴ Who will say they are not right? Jesus Christ died. Yes, he was raised from death. He is at the right side of God. And he talks to God for us.

³⁵ Who can take us away from Christ's love? We may have trouble. We may have hard times. People may make us suffer because we believe. We may have no food to eat and no clothes to wear. We may be in danger. We may be killed with big knives. Can any of these things take us away from Christ's love?

³⁶ The holy writings say, `For your sake we are killed all day. We are like sheep ready to be killed.'

³⁷ But Christ loved us. He has helped us to win great victory in all these things.

³⁹ I know this. Death, life, angels, rulers, things happening now, things that will happen, high things, low things; nothing else in all the world can come between us and God's love in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹³ `You scribes and Pharisees will have trouble. You are not true to yourselves! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven so people cannot go in. You yourselves do not go in, and you stop those who were going in.

¹⁴ `You scribes and Pharisees will have trouble. You who are not true to yourselves! You take away the homes of women whose husbands are dead. You cover up your wrong ways by talking big to God for a long time. Because of that, you will be punished harder.

¹⁵ `You scribes and Pharisees will have trouble. You who are not true to yourselves! You travel over sea and land to win one person to believe what you believe. And when he believes, you make him twice as fit for hell as you are.

¹⁶ `You blind leaders will have trouble. You say that if anyone makes a promise in the name of the temple, he does not have to keep that promise. But if anyone makes a promise in the name of the gold on the temple, he must keep that promise.

¹⁷ `You fools and blind men! Which is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold holy?

¹⁸ And you say that if anyone makes a promise in the name of God's altar, he does not have to keep that promise. But if anyone makes a promise in the name of the sacrifice, he must keep that promise.

¹⁹ `You fools and blind people! Which is greater, the sacrifice or the place that makes the sacrifice holy?

²⁰ So if anyone makes a promise by God's altar, he makes his promise by it and by all that is on it.

²¹ If anyone makes a promise by the temple, he makes his promise by the temple and by God who lives in the temple.

²² If anyone makes a promise by heaven, he makes his promise by God's big chair called a throne and by God who sits on the throne.

²³ `You scribes and Pharisees will have trouble. You who are not true to yourselves! You give God a tenth part of small garden plants. But you have not done those bigger matters of the law. You have not judged in the right way. You have not been kind. You have not believed God. You should be doing these things and the other things too.

²⁴ You blind leaders! You take a fly out of your cup, but you drink down a big animal like a camel!

²⁵ `You scribes and Pharisees will have trouble. You who are not true to yourselves! You wash the outside of a cup and a dish clean. But inside they are full of greed and wrong ways!

²⁶ You blind Pharisees! First clean the inside of the cup and the dish so that the outside will be clean too.