Book of Common Prayer

A maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite.

¹⁰ “Tell these people all these things. They will ask you, ‘Why has the Lord decided to send so much trouble on us? We haven’t done anything wrong. We haven’t committed any sins against the Lord our God.’ ¹¹ When they say this, here is what you should tell them. ‘I did it because your people of long ago deserted me,’ announces the Lord. ‘They followed other gods. They served them and worshiped them. They deserted me. They did not obey my law. ¹² But you have done more evil things than they did. All of you are doing what your stubborn and evil hearts want you to do. You are not obeying me. ¹³ So I will throw you out of this land. I will send you away to another land. Neither you nor your people of long ago have known about it. There you will serve other gods day and night. And I will not give you any help.’

¹⁴ “But a new day is coming,” announces the Lord. “At that time here is what people will no longer say. ‘As sure as he is alive, the Lord brought the Israelites up out of Egypt.’ ¹⁵ Instead, they will say, ‘The Lord brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north. He gathered them out of all the countries where he had forced them to go. And that’s just as sure as he is alive.’ I will bring them back to the land I gave their people of long ago.

¹⁶ “But now I will send for many fishermen,” announces the Lord. “They will catch some of these people. After that, I will send for many hunters. They will hunt down the others on every mountain and hill. They will bring them out of the cracks in the rocks. ¹⁷ My eyes see everything these people do. What they do is not hidden from me. I always see their sin. ¹⁸ I will pay them back double for their sin and the evil things they have done. They have made my land ‘unclean.’ They have set up lifeless statues of their evil gods. They have filled my land with them. I hate those gods.”

An Example From Marriage

7 Brothers and sisters, I am speaking to you who know the law. Don’t you know that the law has authority over someone only as long as they live? ² For example, by law a married woman remains married as long as her husband lives. But suppose her husband dies. Then the law that joins her to him no longer applies. ³ But suppose that married woman sleeps with another man while her husband is still alive. Then she is called a woman who commits adultery. But suppose her husband dies. Then she is free from that law. She is not guilty of adultery if she marries another man.

⁴ My brothers and sisters, when Christ died you also died as far as the law is concerned. Then it became possible for you to belong to him. He was raised from the dead. Now our lives can be useful to God. ⁵ The power of sin used to control us. The law stirred up sinful desires in us. So the things we did resulted in death. ⁶ But now we have died to what used to control us. We have been set free from the law. Now we serve in the new way of the Holy Spirit. We no longer serve in the old way of the written law.

The Law and Sin

⁷ What should we say then? That the law is sinful? Not at all! Yet I wouldn’t have known what sin was unless the law had told me. The law says, “Do not want what belongs to other people.” (Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21) If the law hadn’t said that, I would not have known what it was like to want what belongs to others. ⁸ But the commandment gave sin an opportunity. Sin caused me to want all kinds of things that belong to others. A person can’t sin by breaking a law if that law doesn’t exist. ⁹ Before I knew about the law, I was alive. But then the commandment came. Sin came to life, and I died. ¹⁰ I found that the commandment that was supposed to bring life actually brought death. ¹¹ When the commandment gave sin the opportunity, sin tricked me. It used the commandment to put me to death. ¹² So the law is holy. The commandment also is holy and right and good.

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

6 Some time after this, Jesus crossed over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. It is also called the Sea of Tiberias. ² A large crowd of people followed him. They had seen the signs he had done by healing sick people. ³ Then Jesus went up on a mountainside. There he sat down with his disciples. ⁴ The Jewish Passover Feast was near.

⁵ Jesus looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him. So he said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread for these people to eat?” ⁶ He asked this only to test Philip. He already knew what he was going to do.

⁷ Philip answered him, “Suppose we were able to buy enough bread for each person to have just a bite. That would take more than half a year’s pay!”

⁸ Another of his disciples spoke up. It was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He said, ⁹ “Here is a boy with five small loaves of barley bread. He also has two small fish. But how far will that go in such a large crowd?”

¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down. About 5,000 men were there. ¹¹ Then Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks. He handed out the bread to those who were seated. He gave them as much as they wanted. And he did the same with the fish.

¹² When all of them had enough to eat, Jesus spoke to his disciples. “Gather the leftover pieces,” he said. “Don’t waste anything.” ¹³ So they gathered what was left over from the five barley loaves. They filled 12 baskets with the pieces left by those who had eaten.

¹⁴ The people saw the sign that Jesus did. Then they began to say, “This must be the Prophet who is supposed to come into the world.” ¹⁵ But Jesus knew that they planned to come and force him to be their king. So he went away again to a mountain by himself.