| Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. | Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God. |
| The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord loveth the righteous. | The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are weighed down. The Lord loves the godly. |
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| Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. | Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. |
| Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. | This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! |
| Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again. | “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die. Then they will hand him over to the Romans to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified. But on the third day he will be raised from the dead.” |
| While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen 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. |
| Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. | So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father. |
| Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. | Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice. |
| If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? | 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? |
| Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? | Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? |
| Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. | Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. |
| One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple. | The one thing I ask of the Lord— the thing I seek most— is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord’s perfections and meditating in his Temple. |
| But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. | That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” |
| But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. | Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living. |
| Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. | So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. |
| Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. | Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. |
| Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient. | They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved. Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. |
| Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. | Arise, Jerusalem! Let your light shine for all to see. For the glory of the Lord rises to shine on you. |
| But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. | But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants. |
| And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received 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. |
| And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way. | And Jesus said to him, “Go, for your faith has healed you.” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus down the road. |
| For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. | So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. |
| Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. | Then Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right.” |
| And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. | Then the Lord God said, “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!” So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. |
| The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. | So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. |
