Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts,
nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.
Be indebted to no one, except to one another in love. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
The commandments “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and any other commandments, are summed up in this one decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs.
. . .
A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”
Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone.
But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed.
Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
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.
. . .
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.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
Now one of the scribes had come up and heard their debate. Noticing how well Jesus had answered them, he asked Him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
Jesus replied, “This is the most important: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery;
idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions,
and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
A Psalm of David. O LORD, who may abide in Your tent? Who may dwell on Your holy mountain?
He who walks with integrity and practices righteousness, who speaks the truth from his heart,
who has no slander on his tongue, who does no harm to his neighbor, who casts no scorn on his friend,
who despises the vile but honors those who fear the LORD, who does not revise a costly oath,
who lends his money without interest and refuses a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken.
Whatever you find to do with your hands, do it with all your might, for in Sheol, where you are going, there is no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.
No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
One day an expert in the law stood up to test Him. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” Jesus replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus said. “Do this and you will live.”
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think on these things.
You must not use dishonest measures of length, weight, or volume.
You shall maintain honest scales and weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
He continued: “What comes out of a man, that is what defiles him.
For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness.
Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and complacent; they did not help the poor and needy.
Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them, as you have seen.
Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
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,
. . .
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
And do this not only to please them while they are watching, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.
Serve with good will, as to the Lord and not to men,
because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.
And masters, do the same for your slaves. Give up your use of threats, because you know that He who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with Him.
This is the vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Listen, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the LORD has spoken: “I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me.
The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know; My people do not understand.”
Alas, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children of depravity! They have forsaken the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him.
Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.
. . .
But if you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go into the streets and declare,
‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off as a testimony against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.’
I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus took up this question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.
Now by chance a priest was going down the same road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
So too, when a Levite came to that spot and saw him, he passed by on the other side.
But when a Samaritan on a journey came upon him, he looked at him and had compassion.
. . .
You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of His name.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
. . .
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”
“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.
However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips,
slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents.
. . .
Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
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.
. . .
You must not approach a woman to have sexual relations with her during her menstrual period.
You must not lie carnally with your neighbor’s wife and thus defile yourself with her.
You must not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
You must not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination.
You must not lie carnally with any animal, thus defiling yourself with it; a woman must not stand before an animal to mate with it; that is a perversion.
“Teacher, which commandment is the greatest in the Law?”
Jesus declared, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ will be subject to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be subject to the fire of hell.
Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think of yourself with sober judgment, according to the measure of faith God has given you.
Just as each of us has one body with many members, and not all members have the same function,
so in Christ we who are many are one body, and each member belongs to one another.
. . .
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.
They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.
Having lost all sense of shame, they have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity, with a craving for more.
But this is not the way you came to know Christ.
Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him—in keeping with the truth that is in Jesus—
. . .
And to Adam He said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground because of you; through toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it will yield for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
So He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is prized among men is detestable before God.
Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
“All this I will give You,” he said, “if You will fall down and worship me.”
“Away from Me, Satan!” Jesus declared. “For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’”
Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.
You know that when you were pagans, you were influenced and led astray to mute idols.
Therefore I inform you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
There are different gifts, but the same Spirit.
There are different ministries, but the same Lord.
. . .
Now there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.
Many will follow in their depravity, and because of them the way of truth will be defamed.
In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.
For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them deep into hell, placing them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;
if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, among the eight;
. . .
“Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything.
“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,” but God will destroy them both. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
By His power God raised the Lord from the dead, and He will raise us also.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!
Or don’t you know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”
. . .
If a man opens or digs a pit and fails to cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it,
the owner of the pit shall make restitution; he must pay its owner, and the dead animal will be his.
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.
. . .
Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide yourselves with purses that will not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.
Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your husbands, so that even if they refuse to believe the word, they will be won over without words by the behavior of their wives
Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow.”
“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like wool.
If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land.
This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants what must soon come to pass. He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John,
who testifies to everything he saw. This is the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and obey what is written in it, because the time is near.
John, To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from Him who is and was and is to come, and from the seven Spirits before His throne,
and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and has released us from our sins by His blood,
. . .
And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed.
You are to furnish him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress. You shall give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you.
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