Book of Common Prayer

⁸ Brethren, I would not have you unaware of the trouble that happened to us in Asia. For we were grieved out of measure passing strength, so greatly that we despaired even of life. ⁹ Also, we received an answer of death in ourselves, and that because we should not put our trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead to life again, ¹⁰ and who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver. On whom we trust that yet hereafter he will deliver, ¹¹ by the help of your prayer for us, so that by reason of many deliverances thanks may be given by many for us, for the grace given to us.

¹² Our assurance is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in sincerity and godly purity, and not in fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God we have conducted ourselves in the world, and most of all toward you. ¹³ We write no other things to you than what you read and also know. Yea and I trust you will find us to the end ¹⁴ just as you have found us so far. For we are your delight and joy, even as you are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus.

¹⁵ And in this confidence I was minded the other time to have gone to you, so that you might have had yet one pleasure more, ¹⁶ and to have passed by you on the way to Macedonia, and to have come again out of Macedonia to you, and to have been led on my way toward Judea by you. ¹⁷ When I was so minded, was it lightly? Or do I think carnally the things that I think, such that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay?

¹⁸ God is faithful. For our preaching to you was not yea and nay. ¹⁹ For God’s Son Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us (that is to say, by me and Silvanus and Timothy) was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. ²⁰ For all the promises of God in him are yea, and are in him Amen, to the laud of God through us. ²¹ For it is God who established us and you in Christ, and has anointed us; ²² who has also sealed us, and has given the earnest of the Spirit into our hearts.

²⁷ And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he walked in the temple, there came to him the high priests and the scribes and the elders, ²⁸ and they said to him, By what authority do you do these things? And who gave you this authority, to do these things? ²⁹ Jesus answered and said to them, I will also ask of you a certain thing. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ³⁰ The baptism of John: was it from heaven, or of men? Answer me.

³¹ They thought in themselves, saying, If we say from heaven, he will say, Why then did you not believe him? ³² But if we say of men, then we fear the people. (For everyone counted John to be a very prophet.) ³³ And they answered and said to Jesus, We don’t know. And Jesus answered and said to them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.