Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which is from God. The authorities that exist have been appointed by God.
Consequently, whoever resists authority is opposing what God has set in place, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you want to be unafraid of the one in authority? Then do what is right, and you will have his approval.
For he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not carry the sword in vain. He is God’s servant, an agent of retribution to the wrongdoer.
Therefore it is necessary to submit to authority, not only to avoid punishment, but also as a matter of conscience.
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Because you refused my call, and no one took my outstretched hand,
because you neglected all my counsel, and wanted none of my correction,
in turn I will mock your calamity; I will sneer when terror strikes you,
when your dread comes like a storm, and your destruction like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish overwhelm you.
Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will earnestly seek me, but will not find me.
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Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
“Honor your father and mother” (which is the first commandment with a promise),
“that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life on the earth.”
Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath; instead, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
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For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin.
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome,
because everyone born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith.
Who then overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
Do not be deceived: God is not to be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return.
The one who sows to please his flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; but the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior.
Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her
. . .
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the LORD, “You are my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
Surely He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly plague.
He will cover you with His feathers; under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and rampart.
You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day,
. . .
Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good to abstain from sexual relations.
But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.
The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.
The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife.
Do not deprive each other, except by mutual consent and for a time, so you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you through your lack of self-control.
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You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on another. For on whatever grounds you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
And we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.
So when you, O man, pass judgment on others, yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?
Or do you disregard the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?
But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
. . .
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide an escape, so that you can stand up under it.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.
David asked the men who were standing with him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Just who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?”
“The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.
So practice and observe everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
Do you not know that when you offer yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin leading to death, or to obedience leading to righteousness?
that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Now if you stray unintentionally and do not obey all these commandments that the LORD has spoken to Moses—
all that the LORD has commanded you through Moses from the day the LORD gave them and continuing through the generations to come—
and if it was done unintentionally without the knowledge of the congregation, then the whole congregation is to prepare one young bull as a burnt offering, a pleasing aroma to the LORD, with its grain offering and drink offering according to the regulation, and one male goat as a sin offering.
The priest is to make atonement for the whole congregation of Israel, so that they may be forgiven; for the sin was unintentional and they have brought to the LORD an offering made by fire and a sin offering, presented before the LORD for their unintentional sin.
Then the whole congregation of Israel and the foreigners residing among them will be forgiven, since it happened to all the people unintentionally.
. . .
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate before the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
Then Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I declare in your hearing this day. Learn them and observe them carefully.
The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.
He did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with all of us who are alive here today.
The LORD spoke with you face to face out of the fire on the mountain.
At that time I was standing between the LORD and you to declare to you the word of the LORD, because you were afraid of the fire and would not go up the mountain. And He said:
. . .
And God spoke all these words:
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
. . .
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.
Take notice: I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.
Again I testify to every man who gets himself circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.
You who are trying to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.
But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the hope of righteousness.
. . .
For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, and set apart for the gospel of God—
the gospel He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures,
regarding His Son, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh,
and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
Through Him and on behalf of His name, we received grace and apostleship to call all those among the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.
. . .
What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase?
Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer?
Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.
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You are to imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.
Now I commend you for remembering me in everything and for maintaining the traditions, just as I passed them on to you.
But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head.
And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for it is just as if her head were shaved.
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Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied about them: “Behold, the Lord is coming with myriads of His holy ones
to execute judgment on everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of every ungodly act of wickedness and every harsh word spoken against Him by ungodly sinners.”
These are the commandments and statutes and ordinances that the LORD your God has instructed me to teach you to follow in the land that you are about to enter and possess,
so that you and your children and grandchildren may fear the LORD your God all the days of your lives by keeping all His statutes and commandments that I give you, and so that your days may be prolonged.
Hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe them, so that you may prosper and multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.
And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
. . .
“These are the ordinances that you are to set before them:
If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free without paying anything.
If he arrived alone, he is to leave alone; if he arrived with a wife, she is to leave with him.
If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children; I do not want to go free,’
. . .
Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” So Abram built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.