Book of Common Prayer
Warnings and greetings
17 I urge you, my dear family, to watch out for those who cause divisions and problems, contrary to the teaching you learned. Avoid them. 18 People like that are serving their own appetites instead of our Lord the Messiah. They deceive the hearts of simple-minded people with their smooth and flattering speech. 19 Your obedience, you see, is well known to all, and so I am rejoicing over you. But I want you to be wise when it comes to good, and innocent when it comes to evil. 20 The God of peace will quickly crush the satan under your feet. May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
21 Timothy, my fellow worker, sends you greetings, as do Lucius, Jason and Sosipater, my relatives. 22 I, Tertius, the scribe for this letter, greet you in the Lord. 23 Gaius, who is host to me and the whole church, sends you greetings. Erastus the city treasurer sends you greetings, as does another brother, Quartus.
Final blessing
25 Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel, the proclamation of Jesus the Messiah, in accordance with the unveiling of the mystery kept hidden for long ages 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings, according to the command of the eternal God, for the obedience of faith among all the nations— 27 to the only wise God, through Jesus the Messiah, to whom be glory to the coming ages! Amen.
32 As they were going out they found a man from Cyrene, called Simon. They forced him to carry his cross.
33 When they came to the place called Golgotha, which means Skull Place, 34 they gave him a drink of wine mixed with bitter herbs. When he tasted it, he refused to drink it.
35 So then they crucified him. They divided up his clothes by casting lots, 36 and they sat down and kept watch over him there. 37 And they placed the written charge above his head: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”
38 Then they crucified two brigands alongside him, one on his right and one on his left.
Jesus mocked on the cross
39 The people who were going by shouted blasphemies at Jesus. They shook their heads at him.
40 “So!” they said. “You were going to destroy the Temple and build it in three days, were you? Save yourself, if you’re God’s son! Come down from the cross!”
41 The chief priests, too, and the scribes and the elders, mocked him.
42 “He rescued others,” they said, “but he can’t rescue himself! All right, so he’s the King of Israel!—well, let him come down from the cross right now, and then we’ll really believe that he is! 43 He trusted in God; let God deliver him now, if he’s so keen on him—after all, he did say he was God’s son!”
44 The brigands who were crucified alongside him heaped insults on him as well.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.