Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁴⁴ While Peter was still saying all this, the holy spirit fell on everyone who was listening to the word. ⁴⁵ The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were astonished, because the gift of the holy spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles too. ⁴⁶ They heard them speaking with tongues and praising God.

Then Peter spoke up.

⁴⁷ “Nobody can deny these people water to be baptized, can they?” he said. “They have received the holy spirit, just like we did!” ⁴⁸ So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus the Messiah.

Then they asked him to stay for a few days.

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.

Obeying and loving

⁹ “As the father loved me,” Jesus continued, “so I loved you. Remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my father’s commands, and remain in his love. ¹¹ I’ve said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and so that your joy may be full.

¹² “This is my command: love one another, in the same way that I loved you. ¹³ No one has a love greater than this, to lay down your life for your friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends, if you do what I tell you. ¹⁵ I’m not calling you ‘servants’ any longer; servants don’t know what their master is doing. But I’ve called you ‘friends,’ because I’ve let you know everything I heard from my father.

¹⁶ “You didn’t choose me. I chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. Then the father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ¹⁷ This is my command to you: love one another.”