Book of Common Prayer

The finished achievement of the Messiah

¹¹ Thus it comes about that every priest stands daily at his duty, offering over and over the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. ¹² But Jesus offered a single sacrifice on behalf of sins, for all time, and then “sat down at the right hand of God.” ¹³ From that moment on he is waiting “until his enemies are made a stool for his feet.” ¹⁴ By a single sacrifice, you see, he has made perfect forever those who are sanctified.

¹⁵ The holy spirit bears witness to this too. For, after it is said,

then he adds:

¹⁸ Where these are put away, there is no longer a sacrifice for sin.

So—come to worship!

¹⁹ So then, my brothers and sisters, we have boldness to go into the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus. ²⁰ He has inaugurated a brand new, living path through the curtain (that is, his earthly body). ²¹ We have a high priest who is over God’s house. ²² Let us therefore come to worship, with a true heart, in complete assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from a bad conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

²³ Let us hold on tightly to our confession of hope, without being diverted; the one who announced the message to us is trustworthy! ²⁴ Let us, as well, stir up one another’s minds to energetic effort in love and good works. ²⁵ We mustn’t neglect meeting together, as some are now doing. Instead, we must encourage one another, and all the more as you can see the great day coming closer.

Feeding the five thousand

6 After this Jesus went away beside the sea of Galilee, that is, the sea of Tiberias. ² A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was doing in healing the sick. ³ Jesus went up into the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴ It was nearly time for the Passover, a Jewish festival.

⁵ Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming to him.

“Where are we going to buy bread,” he said to Philip, “so that they can have something to eat?” ⁶ (He said this to test him. He himself knew what he intended to do.)

⁷ “Even with six months’ pay,” replied Philip, “you wouldn’t be able to buy enough bread for each of them to have just a little!”

⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, joined in.

⁹ “There’s a lad here,” he said, “who’s got five barley loaves and two fish. But what use are they with this many people?”

¹⁰ “Make the men sit down,” said Jesus.

There was a lot of grass where they were, so the men sat down, about five thousand in all. ¹¹ So Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks and gave them to the people sitting down, and then did the same with the fish, as much as they wanted.

¹² When they were satisfied, he called the disciples.

“Collect up the bits and pieces left over,” he said, “so that we don’t lose anything.”

¹³ So they collected it up, and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces of the five barley loaves left behind by the people who had eaten.

¹⁴ When the people saw the sign that Jesus had done, they said, “This really is the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.” ¹⁵ So when Jesus realized that they were intending to come and seize him to make him king, he withdrew again, by himself, up the mountain.