It is better to spend one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in God’s house than dwell inside the tents of the wicked.
Therefore, rid yourselves of everything sordid and of every wicked excess, and welcome in all humility the word that is implanted in you and is able to save your souls.
This rather is the type of fast that I wish: to loosen the fetters of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to set free those who are oppressed and to break every yoke.
Nor should you present any part of your body as an instrument for wickedness leading to sin. Rather, present yourselves to God as having been raised from death to life and the parts of your body to God as instruments for righteousness.
Do I derive any pleasure from the death of the wicked? asks the Lord God. Would I not rather rejoice to see them turn away from their wickedness and live?
Then he went on, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For from within, from the human heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from within, and they defile a person.”
For we are not struggling against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, the powers, and the cosmic rulers of this present darkness, and against the spirits of evil in the heavens.
Do not associate with unbelievers. For what basis can there be for a partnership between righteousness and lawlessness? What do light and darkness have in common?
Yours, O Lord, are greatness, power, glory, strength, and majesty, for everything in heaven and on earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.