Book of Common Prayer

¹⁸ For you have not come to the mount that can be touched, and to burning fire, nor yet to mist and darkness and tempest of weather, ¹⁹ neither to the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, which voice the people that heard it wished away so that the message would not be spoken to them. ²⁰ For they were not able to abide that which was spoken. If a beast had touched the mountain, it was to have been stoned or thrust through with a dart. ²¹ Even so terrible was the sight that appeared, Moses said, I fear and quake!

²² But you have come to the mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the celestial Jerusalem, and to an innumerable multitude of angels, ²³ and to the congregation of the first born sons, whose names are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just and perfect, ²⁴ and to Jesus, the mediator of the new testament, and to the sprinkling of blood that speaks better than the blood of Abel.

²⁵ See that you do not forsake him that speaks. For if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven – ²⁶ whose voice then shook the earth, and who now declares, saying: Yet once more will I shake, not the earth only, but also heaven.

²⁷ No doubt this that he says – yet once more – signifies the removal of those things that are shaken, as of things that have ended their course, so that the things which are not shaken may remain. ²⁸ Therefore, if we receive the kingdom that is not shaken, we have grace whereby we may serve God, and please him with reverence and godly fear. ²⁹ For our God is a consuming fire.

²² After these things, Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and there he spent time with them and baptized. ²³ And John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there, and people came and were baptized. ²⁴ For John had not yet been cast into prison.

²⁵ And there arose a question between John’s disciples and the Jews about purifying. ²⁶ And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, of whom you bear witness, behold, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.

²⁷ John answered and said, A man can receive nothing at all unless it is given to him from heaven. ²⁸ You yourselves are witnesses that I said I am not the Christ, but have been sent before him. ²⁹ He who has the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and hears him, rejoices greatly to hear the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this my joy is fulfilled. ³⁰ He must increase in renown, and I must decrease.