What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you?
You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask.
And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.
It was the first day of the week, and that very evening, while the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you!” He said to them.
Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles in the flesh and called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision (that done in the body by human hands)—
remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
“If anyone is destined for captivity, into captivity he will go; if anyone is to die by the sword, by the sword he must be killed.” Here is a call for the perseverance and faith of the saints.
Then I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse. And its rider is called Faithful and True. With righteousness He judges and wages war.
He has eyes like blazing fire, and many royal crowns on His head. He has a name written on Him that only He Himself knows.
He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and His name is The Word of God.
The armies of heaven, dressed in fine linen, white and pure, follow Him on white horses.
And from His mouth proceeds a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.
He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs You are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.
. . .
Then the beast was permitted to wage war against the saints and to conquer them, and it was given authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.