Book of Common Prayer

¹ The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth^[a].

May You Prosper In All Things, Just As Your Soul Is Prospering Because You Walk In The Truth

² Beloved, I pray^[b] that with respect to all things you may prosper and be healthy, just as your soul is prospering. ³ For I rejoiced greatly while brothers were coming and testifying concerning your truth— how^[c] you are walking in the truth. ⁴ I have no joy greater than these things: that I may be hearing-of my children walking in the truth.

Beloved, Support Fellow Workers For The Truth

⁵ Beloved, you are doing a faithful thing— whatever you may accomplish^[d]— for the brothers (and this, for strangers!) ⁶ who testified concerning your love before the church, as to whom you will do well having sent-them-forward worthily of God. ⁷ For they went out for the Name, taking nothing from the Gentiles. ⁸ Therefore we ought to be supporting such ones, in order that we may be^[e] fellow-workers^[f] for the truth.

Diotrephes Is Not Accepting Us. Beloved, Imitate The One Doing Good

⁹ I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, the one loving-to-be-first^[g] among them, is not accepting^[h] us. ¹⁰ For this reason, if I come I will call-to-mind^[i] his deeds which he is doing— talking-nonsense-about^[j] us with malicious words. And not being content with these things, neither is he himself accepting the brothers. And he is forbidding and putting-out^[k] of the church the ones wanting to do so. ¹¹ Beloved, do not be imitating the evil, but the good. The one doing-good is from God. The one doing-evil has not seen God.

Demetrius Is Attested By Everyone

¹² With regard to Demetrius, he has been attested by everyone, and by the truth itself. And we also are testifying, and you know that our testimony is true.

¹³ I had many things to write to you, but I do not wish to write to you with ink and pen. ¹⁴ But I hope to see you at-once, and we will speak mouth to mouth. Peace to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends by name.

Jesus Calls Levi The Tax Collector And Eats With His Friends. I Came For Sinners

²⁷ And after these things, He went out and saw a tax-collector, Levi by name, sitting at the tax-office^[a]. And He said to him, “Be following Me!” ²⁸ And having left-behind everything, having stood up, he was following Him. ²⁹ And Levi made a great reception^[b] for Him in his house. And there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were reclining [to eat] with them. ³⁰ And the Pharisees and their scribes were grumbling to His disciples, saying, “For what reason are you eating and drinking with the tax collectors and sinners^[c]?” ³¹ And having responded, Jesus said to them, “The ones being healthy have no need of a physician, but the ones being ill. ³² I have not come to call righteous ones to repentance, but sinners”.

Why Do Your Disciples Not Fast? The Bridegroom Is Here. New Wineskins

³³ And the ones said to Him, “The disciples of John are fasting^[d] frequently and making prayers. Likewise also the ones of the Pharisees. But Yours are eating and drinking”. ³⁴ And Jesus said to them, “You cannot make the sons^[e] of the wedding-hall fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? ³⁵ But days will come. And when the bridegroom is taken-away from them, then they will fast in those days”. ³⁶ And He was also speaking a parable to them, that “No one having torn a patch from a new garment puts it on an old garment. Otherwise indeed he^[f] will both tear the new, and the patch from the new will not agree^[g] with the old. ³⁷ And no one puts new^[h] wine into old wineskins. Otherwise indeed the new wine will burst the wineskins, and it will spill-out, and the wineskins will be ruined. ³⁸ But new wine must-be-put into fresh wineskins. ³⁹ And no one having drunk old wine desires^[i] new. For he says, ‘The old is good’”.