Book of Common Prayer
12 Take care, my dear family, that none of you should possess an evil and unbelieving heart, leading you to withdraw from the living God. 13 But encourage one another every day, as long as it’s called “Today,” so that none of you may become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
Hold on tight!
14 We share the life of the Messiah, you see, only if we keep a firm, tight grip on our original confidence, right through to the end. 15 That’s what it means when it says, “Today, if you hear his voice, don’t make your hearts hard, as in the great bitterness.”
16 Who was it, after all, who heard and then became bitter? It was all those who went out of Egypt under Moses, wasn’t it? 17 And who was it that God was angry with for forty years? It was those who sinned, wasn’t it—those whose bodies fell in the desert? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who didn’t believe? 19 So we can see that it was their unbelief that prevented them from entering.
Water into wine
2 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.
3 The wine ran out.
Jesus’ mother came over to him.
“They haven’t got any wine!” she said.
4 “Oh, Mother!” replied Jesus. “What’s that got to do with you and me? My time hasn’t come yet.”
5 His mother spoke to the servants.
“Do whatever he tells you,” she said.
6 Six stone water-jars were standing there, ready for use in the Jewish purification rites. Each held about twenty or thirty gallons.
7 “Fill the jars with water,” said Jesus to the servants. And they filled them, right up to the brim.
8 “Now draw some out,” he said, “and take it to the chief steward.” They did so.
9 When the chief steward tasted the water that had turned into wine (he didn’t know where it had come from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew), he called the bridegroom.
10 “What everybody normally does,” he said, “is to serve the good wine first, and then the worse stuff when people have had plenty to drink. But you’ve kept the good wine till now!”
11 This event, in Cana of Galilee, was the first of Jesus’ signs. He displayed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
12 After this, he went down to Capernaum, with his mother, his brothers and his disciples. He remained there for a few days.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.