Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified of them, for the Lord, your God, is going forth with you. He will never leave you or abandon you.
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.
For the Lord loves the just, and he will not forsake his faithful ones. Those who follow evil paths will be destroyed, and the children of the wicked will be cut off.
Do not forsake your friend or the friend of your father, and do not run to your brother’s house when troubles befall you; far better is a friend nearby than a brother who is far away.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and offered worship and service to the creature rather than to the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural practices. Likewise, men gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameful acts with men and received in their own persons the fitting penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since these people did not see fit to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their depraved way of thinking and to all types of vile behavior.