Wednesday, May 27, 2026

¹⁸knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things like silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers,

¹⁹but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish or spot, the blood of Christ,

²⁰who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in this last age for your sake,

²¹who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope might be in God.

²²Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth through the Spirit in sincere brotherly affection, love one another from the heart fervently,

²³having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and remains forever.

²⁴For, "All flesh is like grass, and all of man's glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls;

²⁵but the Lord's word endures forever." This is the word of Good News which was preached to you.

¹²Praise the LORD, Jerusalem! Praise your God, Zion!

¹³For he has strengthened the bars of your gates. He has blessed your children within you.

¹⁴He makes peace in your borders. He fills you with the finest of the wheat.

¹⁵He sends out his commandment to the earth. His word runs very swiftly.

¹⁹He shows his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.

²⁰He has not done this for just any nation. They don't know his ordinances. Praise the LORD!

³²They were on the way, going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus was going in front of them, and they were amazed; and those who followed were afraid. He again took the twelve, and began to tell them the things that were going to happen to him.

³³"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death, and will deliver him to the Gentiles.

³⁴They will mock him, spit on him, scourge him, and kill him. On the third day he will rise again."

³⁵James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came near to him, saying, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we will ask."

³⁶He said to them, "What do you want me to do for you?"

³⁷They said to him, "Grant to us that we may sit, one at your right hand and one at your left hand, in your glory."

³⁸But Jesus said to them, "You don't know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"

³⁹They said to him, "We are able." Jesus said to them, "You shall indeed drink the cup that I drink, and you shall be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with;

⁴⁰but to sit at my right hand and at my left hand is not mine to give, but for whom it has been prepared."

⁴¹When the ten heard it, they began to be indignant toward James and John.

⁴²Jesus summoned them and said to them, "You know that they who are recognized as rulers over the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.

⁴³But it shall not be so among you, but whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant.

⁴⁴Whoever of you wants to become first among you shall be bondservant of all.

⁴⁵For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."