| So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this! | Go forth, then. Eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God long ago approved what you do. |
| Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God. | The proud man’s heart is not upright, but the righteous man will live because of his faith. |
| Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. | Produce good fruit as proof of your repentance. |
| But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God. | As for me, I do not regard my life as of any value, only that I finish the race and complete the mission that I received from the Lord Jesus—to bear witness to the gospel of God’s grace. |
| Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come. | While physical training has some value, the benefits of godliness are unlimited, since it holds out promise not only for this life but also for the life to come. |
| Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? | What then shall we say? Should we persist in sin in order that grace may abound? Of course not! We have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? |
| For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. | For you are aware that you were ransomed from your futile way of life inherited from your ancestors not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. |
| I live because of the living Father who sent me; in the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me. | Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so whoever feeds upon me will live because of me. |
| For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! | Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light. |
| Even so, I have noticed one thing, at least, that is good. It is good for people to eat, drink, and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life God has given them, and to accept their lot in life. | This is the conclusion I have reached: it is fitting for a man to eat and drink and find satisfaction in the results of his labors under the sun during the brief span of life that God has allotted him. |
| If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. | For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it. |
| For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. | As servants of God, behave as free people, but do not use your freedom as a means to cover up wrongdoing. |
| If you obey all the decrees and commands I am giving you today, all will be well with you and your children. I am giving you these instructions so you will enjoy a long life in the land the Lord your God is giving you for all time. | You shall obey his statutes and the commandments that I give you today, so that all may go well with you and your children after you, and that you may live long in the land that the Lord, your God, has given you for all time. |
| Let the wicked change their ways and banish the very thought of doing wrong. Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy on them. Yes, turn to our God, for he will forgive generously. | Let the wicked abandon their ways and those who are evil their thoughts. Let them return to the Lord so that he may have mercy upon them; and to our God, for he is rich in forgiveness. |
| Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. | Indeed, persecution will afflict all who want to lead a godly life in Christ Jesus. |
| Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” | And God said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the wild animals and reptiles that crawl upon the earth.” |
| Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food.” | And God said, “Behold, I give you every plant that produces seeds upon the earth and every tree that has fruit with its seed inside of it: these shall be your food.” |
| Look at the ravens. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than any birds! | Consider the ravens. They do not sow or reap, they have no storehouse or barn, and yet God feeds them. You are of far greater importance than birds. |
| Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. | He brought you low, allowing you to suffer from hunger. He then fed you with manna, something with which your fathers were not familiar, so that you might come to know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord. |
| I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will praise my God to my last breath! | I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have life. |
| Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. | Do not lie to one another, since you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self that is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. |
| Instead, let us test and examine our ways. Let us turn back to the Lord. | Let us examine and test our ways and return to the Lord. |
| Then the Lord God said, “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!” So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. | The Lord God said, “Behold, man has become like one of us, for he has knowledge of that which is good and that which is evil. Now, we must prevent him from reaching out and taking the fruit of the tree of life lest he eat it and live forever.” The Lord God cast him out of the Garden of Eden; henceforth he was to labor tilling the soil from which he had come. |
| But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants. | However, whoever lives by the truth comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been done in God. |
| Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. | Those who live according to the flesh fix their attention on the things of the flesh, while those who live according to the Spirit set their thoughts on spiritual things. |
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