How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony! | Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! |
So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. | If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! |
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Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! | Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! |
How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word. | How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. |
And how much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Yes, the law permits a person to do good on the Sabbath. | Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. |
How much better to get wisdom than gold, and good judgment than silver! | How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver. |
Everyone enjoys a fitting reply; it is wonderful to say the right thing at the right time! | To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is! |
I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. | I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. |
So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. | Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment. |
If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? | But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? |
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 shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? |
How great is the goodness you have stored up for those who fear you. You lavish it on those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world. | Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind! |
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns! | How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” |
Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? | He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? |
Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. | How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. |
Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?” “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!” | Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” |
So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. | Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. |
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 neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! |
I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman. | I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin? |
Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone. | Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. |
Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things. | As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. |
I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes. | How I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house. |
When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened. | When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. |
But you may wonder, ‘How will we know whether or not a prophecy is from the Lord?’ If the prophet speaks in the Lord’s name but his prediction does not happen or come true, you will know that the Lord did not give that message. That prophet has spoken without my authority and need not be feared. | And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. |
If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? | If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. |