| 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 he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector. |
| A troublemaker plants seeds of strife; gossip separates the best of friends. | A perverse man stirs up strife. A whisperer 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.” | Let each man give according as he has determined in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. |
| Pride ends in humiliation, while humility brings honor. | A man’s pride brings him low, but one of lowly spirit gains 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. | By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit who doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God; and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already. |
| That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. | Therefore we don’t faint, but though our outward person is decaying, yet our inward person is 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. | Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he 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? | But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, then closes his heart of compassion against him, how does God’s love remain in him? |
| Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. | Everyone therefore who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock. |
| If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. | For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him 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.) | He said to them, “Are you also without understanding? Don’t you perceive that whatever goes into the man from outside can’t defile him, because it doesn’t go into his heart, but into his stomach, then into the latrine, making all foods clean?” |
| A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. | A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge; but the simple pass on, and suffer for it. |
| 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, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. |
| The rich can pay a ransom for their lives, but the poor won’t even get threatened. | The ransom of a man’s life is his riches, but the poor hear no threats. |
| 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 every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are ordained 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. | Don’t envy the man of violence. Choose none of his ways. For the perverse is an abomination to Yahweh, but his friendship is with the upright. |
| 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, being Jews by nature and not Gentile sinners, yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law. |
| 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 among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except God’s Spirit. |
| Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. | Don’t be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. |
| Unfailing love, O Lord, is yours. Surely you repay all people according to what they have done. | Also to you, Lord, belongs loving kindness, for you reward every man according to his work. |
| 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. | Let your beauty come not from the outward adorning of braiding your hair, and of wearing gold ornaments or of putting on fine clothing, but from the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruptible adornment of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious 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 the wicked turns from all his sins that he has committed, and keeps all my statutes, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live. He shall 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, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself so that you also aren’t 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? | If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? |
| Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. | So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. |
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