| If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector. | If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. |
| A troublemaker plants seeds of strife; gossip separates the best of friends. | A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends. |
| You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.” | Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. |
| Pride ends in humiliation, while humility brings honor. | Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor. |
| This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God. But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here. | This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. |
| That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. | Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. |
| Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. | Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. |
| 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? | If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? |
| Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. | Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. |
| If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. | If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. |
| “Don’t you understand either?” he asked. “Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.) | “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) |
| A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. | The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty. |
| This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! | Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! |
| The rich can pay a ransom for their lives, but the poor won’t even get threatened. | A person’s riches may ransom their life, but the poor cannot respond to threatening rebukes. |
| Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. | Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. |
| Don’t envy violent people or copy their ways. Such wicked people are detestable to the Lord, but he offers his friendship to the godly. | Do not envy the violent or choose any of their ways. For the Lord detests the perverse but takes the upright into his confidence. |
| You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles. Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law. | We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. |
| No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. | For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. |
| Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. | Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. |
| Unfailing love, O Lord, is yours. Surely you repay all people according to what they have done. | “And with you, Lord, is unfailing love”; and, “You reward everyone according to what they have done.” |
| Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God. | Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. |
| But if wicked people turn away from all their sins and begin to obey my decrees and do what is just and right, they will surely live and not die. | But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die. |
| Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. | Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. |
| 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? | Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. |
| Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. | My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. |
Bible verse of the day
Look! He comes with the clouds of heaven.And everyone will see him—
even those who pierced him.
And all the nations of the world
will mourn for him.
Yes! Amen!