Book of Common Prayer

Faith wins the victory

5 Everyone who believes that the Messiah is Jesus has been fathered by God. Everyone who loves the parent loves the child as well. ² That is how we know that we love the children of God, because we love God and do what he commands. ³ This is what loving God means: it means keeping his commandments. His commandments, what’s more, are no trouble, ⁴ because everything that is fathered by God conquers the world. This is the victory that conquers the world: our faith.

⁵ Who is the one who conquers the world? Surely the one who believes that Jesus is God’s son! ⁶ It was he who came by means of water and blood, Jesus the Messiah, not by water only but by the water and the blood. The spirit is the one who bears witness, because the spirit is the truth. ⁷ There are three that bear witness, you see, ⁸ the spirit, the water and the blood, and these three agree together. ⁹ If we have received human witness, God’s witness is greater. This is the witness of God, the testimony he has borne to his son. ¹⁰ All those who believe in the son of God have the witness in themselves, but anyone who does not believe God has made a liar of him, because they have not believed in the witness which God bore concerning his son. ¹¹ This is the witness: God has given us the life of the age to come, and this life is in his son. ¹² Anyone who has the son has life. Anyone who does not have the son of God does not have life.

Jesus condemns the cities

¹⁶ “What picture shall I give you for this generation?” asked Jesus. “It’s like a bunch of children sitting in the town square, and singing songs to each other. ¹⁷ This is how it goes:

¹⁸ “What do I mean? When John appeared, he didn’t have any normal food or drink—and people said ‘What’s got into him, then? Some demon?’ ¹⁹ Then along comes the son of man, eating and drinking normally, and people say, ‘Ooh, look at him—guzzling and boozing, hanging around with tax-collectors and other riff-raff.’ But, you know, wisdom is as wisdom does—and wisdom will be vindicated!”

²⁰ Then he began to berate the towns where he’d done most of his powerful deeds, because they hadn’t repented.

²¹ “A curse on you, Chorazin!” he said. “A curse on you, Bethsaida! If Tyre and Sidon had seen the kind of powerful things you saw, they would have repented long ago with hairshirts and ashes. ²² But I can tell you this: on the day of judgment Tyre and Sidon will have a better time of it than you will. ²³ And what about you, Capernaum? You think you’re going to be exalted to heaven, do you? No—you’ll be sent down to Hades! If the powerful works that happened in you had happened in Sodom, it would still be standing today. ²⁴ But I can tell you this: on the day of judgment the land of Sodom will have a better time of it than you will!”