Book of Common Prayer
Consider soberly what God has done for you
13-16 So brace up your minds, and, as men who know what they are doing, rest the full weight of your hopes on the grace that will be yours when Jesus Christ reveals himself. Live as obedient children before God. Don’t let your character be moulded by the desires of your ignorant days, but be holy in every department of your lives, for the one who has called you is himself holy. The scripture says: ‘Be holy, for I am holy’.
17-21 If you pray to a Father who judges men by their actions without the slightest favouritism, then you should spend the time of your stay here on earth with reverent fear. For you must realise all the time that you have been “ransomed” from the futile way of living passed on to you by your fathers’ traditions, not with some money payment of transient value, but by the costly shedding of blood. The price was in fact the life-blood of Christ, the unblemished and unstained lamb of sacrifice. It is true that God chose him to fulfil this part before the world was founded, but it was for your benefit that he was revealed in these last days—for you who found your faith in God through Christ. And God raised him from the dead and gave him unimaginable splendour, so that all your faith and hope might be centred in God.
Let your life match your high calling
22-25a Now that you have, by obeying the truth, made your souls clean enough for a genuine love of your fellows, see that you do love each other, fervently and from the heart. For you are the sons of God now; the live, permanent Word of the living God has given you his own indestructible heredity. It is true that: ‘All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures for ever’.
25b The Word referred to, as far as you are concerned, is the message of the Gospel that was preached to you.
Jesus welcomes children
13-15 Then some little children were brought to him, so that he could put his hands on them and pray for them. The disciples frowned on the parents’ action but Jesus said, “You must let little children come to me, and you must never stop them. The kingdom of Heaven belongs to little children like these!” Then he laid his hands on them and went on his way.
Jesus shows that keeping the commandments is not enough
16 Then it happened that a man came up to him and said, “Master what good thing must I do to secure eternal life?”
17 “I wonder why you ask me about what is good?” Jesus answered him. “Only one is good. But if you want to enter that life you must keep the commandments.”
18-19 “Which ones?” he asked. “‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ ‘Honour your father and your mother’, and ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’,” replied Jesus.
20 “I have carefully kept all these,” returned the young man. “What is still missing in my life?”
21 Then Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go now and sell your property and give the money away to the poor—you will have riches in Heaven. Then come and follow me!”
22 When the young man heard that he turned away crestfallen, for he was very wealthy.
The New Testament in Modern English by J.B Phillips copyright © 1960, 1972 J. B. Phillips. Administered by The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. Used by Permission.