Book of Common Prayer

God’s promise and Abraham’s faith

3 You witless Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Messiah Jesus was portrayed on the cross before your very eyes! ² There’s just one thing I want to know from you. Did you receive the spirit by doing the works of Torah, or by hearing and believing? ³ You are so witless: you began with the spirit, and now you’re ending with the flesh? ⁴ Did you really suffer so much for nothing—if indeed it is going to be for nothing? ⁵ The one who gives you the spirit and performs powerful deeds among you—does he do this through your performance of Torah, or through hearing and believing?

⁶ It’s like Abraham. “He believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” ⁷ So you know that it’s people of faith who are children of Abraham. ⁸ The Bible foresaw that God would justify the nations by faith, so it announced the gospel to Abraham in advance, when it declared that “the nations will be blessed in you.” ⁹ So you see: the people of faith are blessed along with faithful Abraham.

Redeemed from the law’s curse

¹⁰ Because, you see, those who belong to the “works-of-the-law” camp are under a curse! Yes, that’s what the Bible says: “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t stick fast by everything written in the book of the law, to perform it.” ¹¹ But, because nobody is justified before God in the law, it’s clear that “the righteous shall live by faith.” ¹² The law, however, is not by faith: rather, “the one who does them shall live in them.”

¹³ The Messiah redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse on our behalf, as the Bible says: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” ¹⁴ This was so that the blessing of Abraham could flow through to the nations in Messiah Jesus—and so that we might receive the promise of the spirit, through faith.

The feeding of the five thousand

¹³ When Jesus heard it, he went away from there in a boat to a deserted spot by himself. The crowds heard about it, and they followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴ When he came out and saw the large crowd, he was sorry for them. He healed their sick.

¹⁵ When it was evening, the disciples came to him.

“This is a deserted spot,” they said, “and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

¹⁶ “They don’t need to go away,” said Jesus. “You give them something to eat.”

¹⁷ “All we have here,” they said, “is five loaves of bread and two fish.”

¹⁸ “Bring them here to me,” he said.

¹⁹ He told the crowds to sit down on the grass. Then he took the five loaves and the two fish and looked up to heaven. He blessed the loaves, broke them, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. ²⁰ Everybody ate and was satisfied, and they picked up twelve baskets full of broken pieces. ²¹ There were about five thousand men who had eaten, besides women and children.