Book of Common Prayer

He exhorts them to meekness and longsuffering, to love and peace. Everyone is to serve and edify the other with the gift that God has given him, to beware of strange doctrine, to lay aside the old life of greedy desires, and to walk in a new life.

4 I therefore, who am in bonds for the Lord’s sake, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling wherein you are called, ² in all humbleness of mind, and meekness and longsuffering, forbearing one another through love; ³ and to be diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, ⁴ being one body and one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling. ⁵ Let there be but one Lord, one faith, one baptism: ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in you all.

⁷ To every one of us grace is given according to the nature and scope of the gift of Christ. ⁸ Therefore he says: He ascended up on high, and has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men. ⁹ That he ascended, what does it mean but that he also descended first, into the lowest parts of the earth? ¹⁰ He who descended is the same also who ascended up, even above all heavens, to fulfil all things. ¹¹ And the very same made some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some shepherds, and some teachers, ¹² so that the saints may have all things necessary to work and minister for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ until we every one (in the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God) grow up to be perfect in the maturity of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ so that we henceforth would no longer be children, wavering and carried with every wind of doctrine by the wiliness of men, and craftiness whereby they lay in wait for us, to deceive us.

¹⁵ But let us follow the truth in love, and in all things grow in him who is the head; that is to say, Christ. ¹⁶ In him all the body is coupled and knit together in every joint, and one ministers to another (according to the divine working, as every part has its role), and advances the body for the edifying of itself in love.

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.