My son, do not ignore the Lord’s discipline or refuse to accept his rebuke. For the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, just as a father chastises a beloved son.
Moreover, the one to whom God grants wealth and possessions and the ability to enjoy them and to find contentment in his toil receives a gift from God.
Prepare in advance what you want to say, and return to the Lord. Say to him, “Take away all guilt and give us what is good, so that we may present as offerings the bullocks from our stalls.”
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.
Therefore, brethren, I implore you by the mercies of God to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable to God—a spiritual act of worship.
Then Peter addressed them: “I now understand how true it is that God has no favorites, but that in every nation all those who fear God and do what is right are acceptable to him.”
Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds, so that you will be able to discern the will of God and to know what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Anyone who has received my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and undefiled is this: to come to the aid of orphans and widows in their hardships and to keep oneself untarnished by the world.
If he refuses to listen to them, report it to the Church. And if he refuses to listen to the Church, treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.
This is the conclusion I have reached: it is fitting for a man to eat and drink and find satisfaction in the results of his labors under the sun during the brief span of life that God has allotted him.