Book of Common Prayer

Christ has delivered us from the law and death. Paul shows what the flesh and natural man is, and calls it the law of the members.

7 Do you not consider, brethren (I speak to people who know the law), that the law has dominion over a person as long as it endures? ² For the woman who is under a husband is bound by the law to the man as long as he lives. But if the husband is dead, she is released from the law of the husband. ³ So then, if while the husband is alive she couples herself with another man, she will be counted a wedlock breaker. But if the husband is dead, she is free from the law, so that she is no wedlock breaker if she couples herself with another man.

⁴ In a similar way, my brethren, you are dead concerning the law by the body of Christ, in order to be coupled to another (I mean, to him who is risen again from death), so that we will bring forth fruit unto God. ⁵ For when we were in the flesh, the lusts of sin, which were stirred up by the law, reigned in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. ⁶ But now we are delivered from the law, and dead to that to which we were in bondage, in order to serve in a new life of the Spirit, and not in the old life of the letter.

⁷ What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. But I would not have known what sin meant, if not by the law. For I would not have known what coveting meant unless the law had said, You shall not covet. ⁸ But sin took occasion by the means of the commandment, and wrought in me all manner of inordinate desire. For without the law, sin was dead. ⁹ I once lived without law. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I was dead. ¹⁰ And the very same commandment that was ordained for life, was found to be to me an occasion of death. ¹¹ For sin took occasion by the means of the commandment, and thus deceived me, and by the same commandment slew me. ¹² Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good.

Jesus feeds 5,000 men, goes away in order that they should not make him king, and reproves the fleshly hearers of his word. The carnal are offended at him.

6 After these things, Jesus went his way over the sea of Galilee, near to a city called Tiberias. ² And a great number of people followed him, because they had seen the miracles he did on people who were diseased. ³ And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. ⁴ And Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. ⁵ Then Jesus lifted up his eyes and saw a great crowd coming to him, and said to Philip, Where will we buy bread so that these people can eat? ⁶ This he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do.

⁷ Philip answered him, Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, so that everyone has a little. ⁸ Then one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹ There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fishes, but what is that among so many? ¹⁰ And Jesus said, Make the people sit down.

There was much grass in the place. And the men sat down, in number about 5,000. ¹¹ And Jesus took the bread and gave thanks, and gave to the disciples, and his disciples to them that were seated. And likewise of the fishes, as much as they desired.

¹² When they had eaten enough, he said to his disciples, Gather up the leftover food that remains, so that nothing is lost. ¹³ And they gathered it together, and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over from those who had eaten. ¹⁴ Then the people, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth the prophet that was to come into the world.

¹⁵ When Jesus perceived that they wanted to come and take him up to make him king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.