Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do it. | Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it’s in your power to help them. |
Therefore give everyone what you owe: if you owe taxes, pay taxes; if customs, then customs; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. | Give to everyone what you owe them: Pay your taxes and government fees to those who collect them, and give respect and honor to those who are in authority. |
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Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. | So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. |
Let’s not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season if we don’t give up. | So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. |
For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. | When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. |
Joy comes to a man with the reply of his mouth. How good is a word at the right time! | Everyone enjoys a fitting reply; it is wonderful to say the right thing at the right time! |
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow. | Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. |
Who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural function of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another, men doing what is inappropriate with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error. Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting. | They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved. Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. |
Let the husband give his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife her husband. The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife does. | The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife. |
I will make them and the places around my hill a blessing. I will cause the shower to come down in its season. There will be showers of blessing. | I will bless my people and their homes around my holy hill. And in the proper season I will send the showers they need. There will be showers of blessing. |
If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. | If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you the seasonal rains. The land will then yield its crops, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. |
The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it? “I, Yahweh, search the mind. I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” | The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve. |
God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” | Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” |