affirmation

⁹But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, an acquired people, so that you may announce the virtues of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

¹⁷Sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth.

¹A Psalm of David. The Lord directs me, and nothing will be lacking to me. ²He has settled me here, in a place of pasture. He has led me out to the water of refreshment. ³He has converted my soul. He has led me away on the paths of justice, for the sake of his name. ⁴For, even if I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils. For you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they have given me consolation. ⁵You have prepared a table in my sight, opposite those who trouble me. You have anointed my head with oil, and my cup, which inebriates me, how brilliant it is! ⁶And your mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and so may I dwell in the house of the Lord for length of days.

¹⁰⁵Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths.

⁷For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of virtue, and of love, and of self-restraint.

¹³Everything is possible in him who has strengthened me.

²⁸There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither servant nor free; there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

¹⁷Do not think that I have come to loosen the law or the prophets. I have not come to loosen, but to fulfill.

¹⁹And may my God fulfill all your desires, according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

⁶Jesus said to him: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.

²Therefore, it is necessary for a bishop to be beyond reproach, the husband of one wife, sober, prudent, gracious, chaste, hospitable, a teacher,

¹⁰But God has revealed these things to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.