Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.” You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.

After this, Jesus crossed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias). A large crowd followed Him because they saw the signs He was performing on the sick. Then Jesus went up on the mountain and sat down with His disciples. Now the Jewish Feast of the Passover was near. When Jesus looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward Him, He said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread for these people to eat?” . . .

Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.

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. He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. By this we can be sure that we have come to know Him: if we keep His commandments. If anyone says, “I know Him,” but does not keep His commandments, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone keeps His word, the love of God has been truly perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him: . . .

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. . . .

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

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.

Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.

Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see.

You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

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.

And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.

For certain men have crept in among you unnoticed—ungodly ones who were designated long ago for condemnation. They turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace—as in all the churches of the saints.

For I am the least of the apostles and am unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

No, I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the elect who are exiles of the Dispersion throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. . . .

according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

“I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from following Me and has not carried out My instructions.” And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the LORD all that night.

Moreover, the Glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind, for He is not a man, that He should change His mind.”

Why then do you kick at My sacrifice and offering that I have prescribed for My dwelling place? You have honored your sons more than Me by fattening yourselves with the best of all the offerings of My people Israel.’

After the death of Ahab, Moab rebelled against Israel. Now Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria and injured himself. So he sent messengers and instructed them: “Go inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I will recover from this injury.” But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and ask them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are on your way to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?’ Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘You will not get up from the bed on which you are lying. You will surely die.’” So Elijah departed. When the messengers returned to the king, he asked them, “Why have you returned?” . . .

After the death of Saul, David returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites and stayed in Ziklag two days. On the third day a man with torn clothes and dust on his head arrived from Saul’s camp. When he came to David, he fell to the ground to pay him homage. “Where have you come from?” David asked. “I have escaped from the Israelite camp,” he replied. “What was the outcome?” David asked. “Please tell me.” “The troops fled from the battle,” he replied. “Many of them fell and died. And Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead.” Then David asked the young man who had brought him the report, “How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?” . . .

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. . . .

For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”

He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. And he received living words to pass on to us.

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 . . .

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form.

For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.

You must carefully follow every commandment I am giving you today, so that you may live and multiply, and enter and possess the land that the LORD swore to give your fathers. Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments. He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothing did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. So know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you. . . .

In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will,

Though I am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,

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,

So the LORD relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.

If I say to the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ but you do not warn him or speak out to warn him from his wicked way to save his life, that wicked man will die in his iniquity, and I will hold you responsible for his blood.

So the law became our guardian to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

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.

And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil,

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.

“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.

Each of us has become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.

All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people who walk in the wrong path, who follow their own imaginations,

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. You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God. Or do you think the Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to dwell in us yearns with envy? . . .

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”

As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

I and the Father are one.”

And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

the Spirit of truth. The world cannot receive Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you do know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you.

Jesus replied, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words. The word that you hear is not My own, but it is from the Father who sent Me.

If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

In that day you will no longer ask Me anything. Truly, truly, I tell you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.

And when He comes, He will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because they do not believe in Me;

Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.

I in them and You in Me—that they may be perfectly united, so that the world may know that You sent Me and have loved them just as You have loved Me.

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. . . .

The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me, because I testify that its works are evil.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

But if it is unpleasing in your sight to serve the LORD, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD!”

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.”

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.

All things have been entrusted to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.

For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

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.”

But Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. 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. So then, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

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.

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

Guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flow springs of life.

For the choirmaster. To the tune of “The Doe of the Dawn.” A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, so far from my words of groaning? I cry out by day, O my God, but You do not answer, and by night, but I have no rest. Yet You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and You delivered them. They cried out to You and were set free; they trusted in You and were not disappointed. . . .

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. . . .

God did not reject His people, whom He foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says about Elijah, how he appealed to God against Israel:

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will remove godlessness from Jacob.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set you free from the law of sin and death. 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. Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh; but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. . . .

For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set you free from the law of sin and death.

And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.

For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a certain man from Bethlehem in Judah, with his wife and two sons, went to reside in the land of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah, and they entered the land of Moab and settled there. Then Naomi’s husband Elimelech died, and she was left with her two sons, who took Moabite women as their wives, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth. And after they had lived in Moab about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and without her husband. . . .

This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I am jealous for Zion with great zeal; I am jealous for her with great fervor.”