Book of Common Prayer

¹⁸ Children, it is the last hour. You have heard that “Antimessiah” is coming—and now many Antimessiahs have appeared! That’s how we know that it is the last hour. ¹⁹ They went out from among us, but they were not really of our number. If they had been of our number, you see, they would have remained with us. This happened so that it would be made crystal clear that none of them belonged to us. ²⁰ You, however, have the anointing from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. ²¹ I am not writing to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you do know it, and you know that no liar is of the truth.

²² Who is the liar? Is it not the one who denies that Jesus is the Messiah? Such a one is the Antimessiah—who denies the father and the son. ²³ Nobody who denies the son has the father. One who acknowledges the son has the father too. ²⁴ As for you: let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you too will abide in the son and in the father. ²⁵ And this is the promise which he himself promised us: the life of the age to come.

²⁶ I am writing to you about the people who are deceiving you. ²⁷ You have received the anointing from him; it abides in you, and you do not need to have anyone teach you. That anointing from him teaches you about everything; it is true, it isn’t a lie. So, just as he taught you, abide in him.

²⁸ And now, children, abide in him, so that when he is revealed we may have boldness and may not be put to shame before him at his royal appearing. ²⁹ If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been fathered by him.

The feeding of the five thousand

³⁰ The apostles came back to Jesus and told him all they had done and taught. ³¹ “All right,” he said, “it’s time for a break. Come away, just you, and we’ll go somewhere lonely and private.” (Crowds of people were coming and going and they didn’t even have time to eat.)

³² So they went off privately in the boat to a deserted spot. ³³ And . . . crowds saw them going, realized what was happening, hurried on foot from all the towns, and arrived there first. ³⁴ When Jesus got out of the boat he saw the huge crowd, and was deeply sorry for them, because they were like a flock without a shepherd. So he started to teach them many things.

³⁵ It was already getting late when his disciples came to him and said, “Look: there’s nothing here. It’s getting late. ³⁶ Send them away. They need to go off into the countryside and the villages and buy themselves some food.”

³⁷ “Why don’t you give them something?” Jesus replied.

“Are you suggesting,” they asked, “that we should go and spend two hundred dinars and get food for this lot?”

³⁸ “Well,” said Jesus, “how many loaves have you got? Go and see.”

They found out, and said, “Five, and a couple of fish.”

³⁹ Jesus told them to sit everyone down, group by group, on the green grass. ⁴⁰ So they sat down in companies, by hundreds and by fifties. ⁴¹ Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, looked up to heaven, blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples to give to the crowd. Then he divided the two fish for them all. ⁴² Everyone ate, and had plenty. ⁴³ They picked up the leftovers, and there were twelve baskets of broken pieces, and of the fish.

⁴⁴ The number of men who had eaten was five thousand.