But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Your almsgiving must be done in secret. And your Father who sees everything that is done in secret will reward you.
Therefore, you have no excuse, whoever you may be, when you pass judgment on others. For in judging others you condemn yourself, since you are doing the same things.
However, the one who looks intently at the perfect law of freedom and perseveres—not forgetting what he has heard but putting it into practice—will be blessed in everything he does.
Woe to anyone who rises up against his Maker, or to the pot that is displeased with the potter. Does the clay say to the one who molds it, “What are you doing? Your work makes no sense.”
Preach the message; be persistent in doing so, whether in season or out of season; convince, reprove, and encourage, but with great patience and instruction.
If you refrain from traveling on the Sabbath and from engaging in your own interests on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a day of joy and regard the Lord’s holy day as honorable, if you honor it by not going your own way, serving your own interests, or attending to your own affairs; then you will find true happiness in the Lord, and I will enable you to ride upon the heights of the earth. I will nourish you with the heritage of your father Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
When someone sins and does any of the things that the Lord has forbidden, even if he does not realize he did it, he has still committed an offense and must bear his guilt.
Whatever you do, do it wholeheartedly, as if you were doing it for the Lord and not for others, since you know that you will receive from the Lord an inheritance as your reward for you are serving the Lord Christ.
For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith. This has not come from you but from the gift of God. It does not come from works, so that no one can boast.
For the desires of the flesh are opposed to the Spirit, and those of the Spirit are opposed to the flesh. They are in conflict with one another, so that you cannot do what you want.
One day, as Jesus was passing through a field of grain on the Sabbath, his disciples began to pick some heads of grain as they walked along. The Pharisees said to him, “Behold, why are your disciples doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath?”
He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the sacred bread that only the priests were permitted to eat, and he shared it with his companions.” Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Brethren, we must always give thanks to God for you, and it is only right that we do so. For your faith grows ever more, and the love that all of you have for one another continues to increase.