Book of Common Prayer
The letter to the churches
22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole assembly, decided to send people from their number, Judas Barsabbas and Silas (men well thought of by the Christian community) to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. 23 They sent a letter with them, which read as follows.
“The apostles and elders send greetings to our Gentile brothers and sisters in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. 24 Since we have heard that some of our number (not, however, sent by us) have been saying things which have troubled you, causing you distress of heart, 25 we resolved unanimously that it would be best to send to you men whom we have chosen, together with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26 who have risked their lives for the name of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus. 27 So we have sent Judas and Silas, and they will tell you the same things face to face. 28 For it seemed good to the holy spirit and to us not to lay any burden on you beyond the following necessary things: 29 that you should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what has been strangled, and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
30 So they went off and came down to Antioch, where they gathered the people together and presented the letter. 31 When they read it, they were delighted with the message it contained. 32 Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, said a good deal to encourage the brothers and sisters, and they gave them strength. 33 When they had spent some time there, they left the family in peace and returned to those who had sent them. 35 But Paul and Barnabas stayed on in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others as well.
45 The result of all this was that several of the Judaeans who had come to Mary, and who had seen what he had done, believed in him. 46 But some of them went off to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
The plan of Caiaphas
47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees called an assembly.
“What are we going to do?” they asked. “This man is performing lots of signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone is going to believe in him! Then the Romans will come and take away our holy place, and our nation!”
49 But one of them, Caiaphas, the high priest that year, addressed them.
“You know nothing at all!” he said. 50 “You haven’t worked it out! This is what’s best for you: let one man die for the people, rather than the whole nation being wiped out.”
51 He didn’t say this of his own accord. Since he was high priest that year, it was a prophecy. It meant that Jesus would die for the nation; 52 and not only for the nation, but to gather into one the scattered children of God. 53 So from that day on they plotted how to kill him.
54 So Jesus didn’t go around openly any longer among the Judaeans. He went away from there to the region by the desert, to a town called Ephraim. He stayed there with the disciples.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.