Book of Common Prayer
Restoring the Twelve
15 Around that time Peter stood up in the middle of the gathering, which by this stage numbered about a hundred and twenty.
16 “My dear family,” he said, “the holy spirit spoke long ago, through the mouth of David, about Judas, who became a guide to the people who arrested Jesus. There it is in the Bible, and it had to come true. 17 He was counted along with us, and he had his own share in the work we’ve been given.”
(18 Judas, you see, had bought a field with the money his wickedness had brought him, where he fell headlong and burst open, with all his innards gushing out. 19 This became known to everyone who lived in Jerusalem, so that the field was called, in their local language, “Akeldamach,” which means “Blood-place.”)
20 “For this is what it says in the book of Psalms:
Let his home become desolate
and let nobody live in it;
and again,
Let someone else receive his overseeing task.
21 “So this is what has to be done. There are plenty of people who have gone about with us all the time that our master Jesus was coming and going among us, 22 starting from John’s baptism until the day he was taken from us. Let one of them be chosen to be alongside us as a special witness of his resurrection.”
23 So they chose two: Joseph who was called Barsabbas, with the surname Justus, and Matthias.
24 “Lord,” they prayed, “you know the hearts of all people. Show us which one of these two you have chosen 25 to receive this particular place of service and apostleship, from which Judas went away to go to his own place.”
26 So they cast lots for them. The lot fell on Matthias, and he was enrolled along with the eleven apostles.
55 There were several women there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee, helping to look after his needs. 56 They included Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.
The burial of Jesus
57 When evening came, a rich man from Arimathea arrived. He was called Joseph, and he, too, was a disciple of Jesus. 58 He went to Pilate and requested the body of Jesus. Pilate gave the order that it should be given to him.
59 So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth. 60 He laid it in his own new tomb, which he had carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a large stone across the doorway of the tomb, and went away.
61 Mary Magdalene was there, and so was the other Mary. They were sitting opposite the tomb.
62 On the next day (that is, the day after Preparation Day), the chief priests and the Pharisees went as a group to Pilate.
63 “Sir,” they said, “when that deceiver was still alive, we recall that he said, ‘After three days, I’ll rise again.’ 64 So please give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise his disciples might come and steal him away, and then tell the people, ‘He’s been raised from the dead!’ and so the last deception would be worse than the first.”
65 “You can have a guard,” said Pilate; “go and make it as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and putting a guard on watch.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.