| Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. | Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you. |
| As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. | Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong. |
| Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”. | Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and say, “Life is not pleasant anymore.” |
| Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. | Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away. |
| And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. | Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. “At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’” This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. |
| Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. | “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!” |
| For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: “Seek me and live.” | Now this is what the Lord says to the family of Israel: “Come back to me and live!” |
| So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. | So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. |
| For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. | Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. |
| For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. | For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. |
| If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. | And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. |
| As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. | So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. |
| And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. | And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. |
| May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. | May the Lord lead your hearts into a full understanding and expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ. |
| Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? | Can anyone object to their being baptized, now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as we did? |
| And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. | And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. |
| Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him. | One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God! But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.” But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?” This shamed his enemies, but all the people rejoiced at the wonderful things he did. |
| A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. | So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. |
| Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. | So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this! |
| And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. | After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. |
| This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. | This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. |
| Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord. | Go back to Hezekiah, the leader of my people. Tell him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your ancestor David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you, and three days from now you will get out of bed and go to the Temple of the Lord.’ |
| As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. | You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. |
| For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. | So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law. |
| All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). | All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet: “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” |
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