Book of Common Prayer

Faith that looks beyond death

¹³ All these people died in faith. They hadn’t received the promise, but they had seen it from far off, and had greeted it, and had recognized that they were strangers and wanderers in the land. ¹⁴ People who say that sort of thing, you see, make it clear that they are looking for a homeland. ¹⁵ Had they been thinking of the place from which they had set out, they would have had plenty of opportunity to go back to it. ¹⁶ But as it was they were longing for a better place, a heavenly one. That’s why God is not ashamed to be called “their God,” since he has prepared a city for them.

¹⁷ It was by faith that Abraham, when he was put to the test, offered up Isaac; yes, Abraham, who had received the promise, was in the very act of offering up his only son, ¹⁸ the one about whom it had been said that “In Isaac shall your family be named.” ¹⁹ He reckoned that God was capable of raising him even from the dead; and, in one sense, he did indeed receive him back from there.

²⁰ It was by faith in the things that were to come that Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau. ²¹ It was by faith that, when Jacob was dying, he blessed the two sons of Joseph, and “worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.” ²² It was by faith that, when Joseph was coming to the end, he spoke about the exodus of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his own bones.

⁷ So he spoke to them again.

“I’m telling you the solemn truth,” he said. “I am the gate of the sheep. ⁸ All the people who came before me were thieves and brigands, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. ⁹ I am the gate. If anyone comes in by me, they will be safe, and will go in and out and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief only comes to steal, and kill, and destroy. I came so that they could have life—yes, and have it full to overflowing.”

The shepherd and the sheep

¹¹ “I am the good shepherd,” Jesus continued. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹² But supposing there’s a hired servant, who isn’t himself the shepherd, and who doesn’t himself own the sheep. He will see the wolf coming, and leave the sheep, and run away. Then the wolf will snatch the sheep and scatter them. ¹³ He’ll run away because he’s only a hired servant, and doesn’t care about the sheep.

¹⁴ “I am the good shepherd. I know my own sheep, and my own know me— ¹⁵ just as the father knows me and I know the father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶ And I have other sheep, too, which don’t belong to this sheepfold. I must bring them, too, and they will hear my voice. Then there will be one flock, and one shepherd.

¹⁷ “That’s why the father loves me, because I lay down my life, so that I can take it again.