Book of Common Prayer

¹⁶ Do not be mistaken, my dear brethren. ¹⁷ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of light, with whom is no variableness nor turning to darkness. ¹⁸ Of his own will he begat us with the word of life, that we should be the first fruits of his creatures.

¹⁹ Therefore, dear brethren, let everyone be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. ²⁰ For the wrath of man does not work that which is righteous before God. ²¹ Therefore lay apart all uncleanness, and all lingering evil and vice, and receive with meekness the word that is grafted in you, which is able to save your souls. ²² And see that you be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves with sophistry. ²³ For if anyone hears the word and does it not, he is like a man that looks at his bodily face in a mirror. ²⁴ For as soon as he has looked at himself, he goes his way and forgets immediately what his appearance was. ²⁵ But whoever looks in the perfect law of liberty and continues in it (if he is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work), this one shall be happy in his deed.

²⁶ If anyone among you seems devout, yet refrains not his tongue, but betrays his own heart into mischief, this one’s devotion is in vain. ²⁷ Pure devotion, and undefiled before God the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their adversity, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

He teaches his disciples to pray, drives out a devil, and rebukes the blasphemous Pharisees. They require signs and tokens. He eats with the Pharisee, and reproves the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, scribes, and hypocrites.

11 And it happened as he was praying in a certain place that when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, Master, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. ² And he said to them, When you pray, say, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, even in earth as it is in heaven. ³ Give us our daily bread evermore. ⁴ And forgive us our sins, for even we forgive every person that trespasses against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

⁵ And he said to them, If any of you had a friend, and went to him at midnight and said to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, ⁶ because a friend of mine has come from a journey to me and I have nothing to set before him, ⁷ and the man inside were to answer and say, Don’t trouble me; the door is now shut, and my servants are with me in the chamber; I cannot rise and give them to you – ⁸ I say to you, though he would not arise and give him a loaf because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he would rise and give him as many as he needed. ⁹ And so I say to you: ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

¹⁰ For everyone that asks, receives, and he that seeks, finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened. ¹¹ If the son asks for bread from any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish, will he give him a serpent for a fish? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then who are evil can give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father of heaven give a holy spirit to those who desire it of him?