Book of Common Prayer

¹¹ Dearly beloveds, I beseech you: as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which fight against the soul. ¹² And see that you lead virtuous lives among the Gentiles, so that those who backbite you as evil-doers may see your good works and praise God in the day of visitation.

¹³ Submit yourselves to every human authority, for the Lord’s sake – whether it be to the king as to the chief head, ¹⁴ or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, but for the praise of those who do well. ¹⁵ For so is the will of God, so that you put to silence the ignorance of foolish men – ¹⁶ as free, and not as having freedom for a cloak of evil, but even as the servants of God.

¹⁷ Honour all people. Love brotherly fellowship. Fear God, and honour the king.

¹⁸ Servants, obey your masters with all fear, not only if they are good and kind, but also though they be ill-natured. ¹⁹ For it is meritorious if a person for conscience towards God endures grief, suffering wrongfully. ²⁰ For how is it praiseworthy if when you are buffeted for your faults, you take it patiently? But if when you do well you suffer wrong, and take it patiently, then is there favour with God.

²¹ For to this indeed you have been called. For Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps – ²² who did no sin, neither was there guile found in his mouth; ²³ who, when he was reviled, reviled not in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed the cause to him who judges righteously. ²⁴ He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we may be delivered from sin and live in righteousness; by his stripes you were healed. ²⁵ For you were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls.

¹² This is my commandment: that you love together, as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love than this has no man, than to bestow his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. ¹⁵ Henceforth I do not call you servants, for the servant knows not what his lord does, but I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you.

¹⁶ You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should endure; that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he should give it to you.

¹⁷ This I command you: love one another. ¹⁸ If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own. However because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the saying that I said to you: the servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, so will they persecute you. If they have kept my sayings, so will they keep yours. ²¹ But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they have not known him who sent me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin. But now they have nothing to cloak their sin with.

²³ He who hates me, hates my Father. ²⁴ If I had not done works among them which no other man did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen, and yet have hated both me and my Father, ²⁵ even so that the saying is fulfilled that is written in their law: They hated me without a cause.

²⁶ But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, which is the Spirit of truth who proceeds of the Father, he will testify of me. ²⁷ And you shall bear witness also, because you have been with me from the beginning.