Book of Common Prayer

1 ^1-2 Simon Peter, a servant and messenger of Jesus Christ, sends this letter to those who have been given a faith as valuable as yours in the righteousness of our God, and saviour Jesus Christ. May you know more and more of grace and peace as your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord grows deeper.

God has done his part: see that you do yours

^3-4 He has by his own action given us everything that is necessary for living the truly good life, in allowing us to know the one who has called us to him, through his own glorious goodness. It is through him that God’s greatest and most precious promises have become available to us men, making it possible for you to escape the inevitable disintegration that lust produces in the world and to share in God’s essential nature.

^5-7 For this very reason you must do your utmost from your side, and see that your faith carries with it real goodness of life. Your goodness must be accompanied by knowledge, your knowledge by self-control, your self-control by the ability to endure. Your endurance too must always be accompanied by devotion to God; that in turn must have in it the quality of brotherliness, and your brotherliness must lead on to Christian love.

^8-9 If you have these qualities existing and growing in you then it means that knowing our Lord Jesus Christ has not made your lives either complacent or unproductive. The man whose life fails to exhibit these qualities is short-sighted—he can no longer see the reason why he was cleansed from his former sins.

^10-11 Set your minds, then, on endorsing by your conduct the fact that God has called and chosen you. If you go along the lines I have indicated above, there is no reason why you should stumble, and if you have lived the sort of life I have recommended God will open wide to you the gates of the eternal kingdom of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

^39-40 Then he went out of the city and up on to the Mount of Olives, as he had often done before, with the disciples following him. And when he reached his usual place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not have to face temptation!”

^41-42 Then he went off by himself, about a stone’s throw away, and falling on his knees, prayed in these words—“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me—but it is not my will, but yours, that must be done.”

^43-45 And an angel from Heaven appeared, strengthening him. He was in agony and prayed even more intensely so that his sweat was like great drops of blood falling to the ground. Then he got to his feet from his prayer and walking back to his disciples, he found them sleeping through sheer grief.

⁴⁶ “Why are you sleeping?” he said to them. “You must get up and go on praying that you may not have to face temptation.”

The mob arrives and Judas betrays

⁴⁷ While he was still speaking a crowd of people arrived, led by the man called Judas, one of the twelve. He stepped up to Jesus to kiss him.

⁴⁸ “Judas, would you betray the son of Man with a kiss?” said Jesus to him.

⁴⁹ And the disciples, seeing what was going to happen, cried, “Lord, shall we use our swords?”

^50-51 And one of them did slash at the High Priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus retorted, “That will do!”

^52-53 And he touched his ear and healed him. Then he spoke to the chief priests, Temple officers and elders who were there to arrest him, “So you have come out with your swords and staves as if I were a bandit. Day after day I was with you in the Temple and you never laid a finger on me—but this is your hour and the power of darkness is yours!”