In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words.
And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
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.
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.
First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be offered for everyone—
for kings and all those in authority—so that we may lead tranquil and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity.
This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,
who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
. . .
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.
One day, while Job’s sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,
a messenger came and reported to Job: “While the oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby,
the Sabeans swooped down and took them away. They put the servants to the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”
While he was still speaking, another messenger came and reported: “The fire of God fell from heaven. It burned and consumed the sheep and the servants, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”
While he was still speaking, another messenger came and reported: “The Chaldeans formed three bands, raided the camels, and took them away. They put the servants to the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”
. . .
Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together, against the LORD and against His Anointed One:
“Let us break Their chains and cast away Their cords.”
The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord taunts them.
Then He rebukes them in His anger, and terrifies them in His fury:
. . .
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,
because we have heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all the saints—
the faith and love proceeding from the hope stored up for you in heaven, of which you have already heard in the word of truth, the gospel
. . .
All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath.
But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!
But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’
I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction,
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
And our hope for you is sure, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you will share in our comfort.
We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the hardships we encountered in the province of Asia. We were under a burden far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.
Indeed, we felt we were under the sentence of death, in order that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead.
“Here,” said Abram, “your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled from her.
Now the angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur.
“Hagar, servant of Sarai,” he said, “where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I am running away from my mistress Sarai,” she replied.
So the angel of the LORD told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.”
Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”
. . .
Early in the morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.
When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.
Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept.
Then God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he lies.
Get up, lift up the boy, and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
. . .
But when evening came, Laban took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and he slept with her.
And Laban gave his servant girl Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her maidservant.
When morning came, there was Leah! “What have you done to me?” Jacob said to Laban. “Wasn’t it for Rachel that I served you? Why have you deceived me?”
Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
For this reason He had to be made like His brothers in every way, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, in order to make atonement for the sins of the people.
Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.
For the ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who look for evil will be cut down—
those who indict a man with a word, who ensnare the mediator at the gate, and who with false charges deprive the innocent of justice.
Therefore the LORD who redeemed Abraham says of the house of Jacob: “No longer will Jacob be ashamed and no more will his face grow pale.
Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and His arm establishes His rule. His reward is with Him, and His recompense accompanies Him.
He tends His flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart. He gently leads the nursing ewes.
But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; the Lord has forgotten me!”
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the son of her womb? Even if she could forget, I will not forget you!
Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me.
No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their vindication is from Me,” declares the LORD.
I will restore Judah and Israel from captivity and will rebuild them as in former times.
And I will cleanse them from all the iniquity they have committed against Me, and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against Me.
So this city will bring Me renown, joy, praise, and glory before all the nations of the earth, who will hear of all the good I do for it. They will tremble in awe because of all the goodness and prosperity that I will provide for it.
This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “The sons of Israel are oppressed, and the sons of Judah as well. All their captors hold them fast, refusing to release them.
Their Redeemer is strong; the LORD of Hosts is His name. He will fervently plead their case so that He may bring rest to the earth, but turmoil to those who live in Babylon.
A sword is against the Chaldeans, declares the LORD, against those who live in Babylon, and against her officials and wise men.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.
Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil.
The scribes and Pharisees, however, brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before them
and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. So what do You say?”
“In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected men.
And there was a widow in that town who kept appealing to him, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’
For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect men,
yet because this widow keeps pestering me, I will give her justice. Then she will stop wearing me out with her perpetual requests.’”
And the Lord said, “Listen to the words of the unjust judge.
. . .
But the other one rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same judgment?
We are punished justly, for we are receiving what our actions deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom!”
And Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
Next, they came to Jericho. And as Jesus and His disciples were leaving Jericho with a large crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting beside the road.
When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Many people admonished him to be silent, but he cried out all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
“Have faith in God,” Jesus said to them.
“Truly I tell you that if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and has no doubt in his heart but believes that it will happen, it will be done for him.
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
As soon as Jesus got out of the boat, He was met by a man with an unclean spirit, who was coming from the tombs.
This man had been living in the tombs and could no longer be restrained, even with chains.
Though he was often bound with chains and shackles, he had broken the chains and shattered the shackles. Now there was no one with the strength to subdue him.
Night and day in the tombs and in the mountains he kept crying out and cutting himself with stones.
When the man saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees before Him.
. . .
And a woman was there who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years.
She had borne much agony under the care of many physicians and had spent all she had, but to no avail. Instead, her condition had only grown worse.
On My account, you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.
But when they hand you over, do not worry about how to respond or what to say. In that hour you will be given what to say.
For it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at this glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is vindicated by her actions.”
What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost?
And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices more over that one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.
In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
And after He had placed His hands on them, He went on from there.
At this, one of Jesus’ companions drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him. “For all who draw the sword will die by the sword.
Are you not aware that I can call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?
But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?”
A worthless person, a wicked man, walks with a perverse mouth,
winking his eyes, speaking with his feet, and pointing with his fingers.
With deceit in his heart he devises evil; he continually sows discord.
Therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in an instant he will be shattered beyond recovery.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the LORD guards the path of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
Why has the wicked man renounced God? He says to himself, “You will never call me to account.”
But You have regarded trouble and grief; You see to repay it by Your hand. The victim entrusts himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call him to account for his wickedness until none is left to be found.
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.
. . .
For You have been my refuge, a tower of strength against the enemy.
Let me dwell in Your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of Your wings. Selah
The one who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son.
But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.”
For God does not show favoritism.
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but it is the doers of the law who will be declared righteous.
Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who did not sin in the way that Adam transgressed. He is a pattern of the One to come.
Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who did not sin in the way that Adam transgressed. He is a pattern of the One to come.
But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many!
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.
For at just the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man, as an offering for sin. He thus condemned sin in the flesh,
so that the righteous standard of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why did You make me like this?”
Does not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?
What if God, intending to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction?
What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the vessels of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory—
including us, whom He has called not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles?
. . .
Did it not belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? How could you conceive such a deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God!”
The LORD will deliver them over to you, and you must do to them exactly as I have commanded you.
Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid or terrified of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.”
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.
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.”
“As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the LORD. “My Spirit will not depart from you, and My words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth or from the mouths of your children and grandchildren, from now on and forevermore,” says the LORD.
“You do not know what you are asking,” Jesus replied. “Can you drink the cup I will drink, or be baptized with the baptism I will undergo?”
“We can,” the brothers answered. “You will drink the cup that I drink,” Jesus said, “and you will be baptized with the baptism that I undergo.
But to sit at My right or left is not Mine to grant. These seats belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”
When the woman heard about Jesus, she came up through the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak.
For she kept saying, “If only I touch His garments, I will be healed.”
Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction.
At once Jesus was aware that power had gone out from Him. Turning to the crowd, He asked, “Who touched My garments?”
His disciples answered, “You can see the crowd pressing in on You, and yet You ask, ‘Who touched Me?’”
. . .
Jesus answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.
No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. For the patch will pull away from the garment, and a worse tear will result.
Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are obligated to thank God for you all the time, brothers, as is fitting, because your faith is growing more and more, and your love for one another is increasing.
That is why we boast among God’s churches about your perseverance and faith in the face of all the persecution and affliction you are enduring.
All this is clear evidence of God’s righteous judgment. And so you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering.
. . .
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”