They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and offered worship and service to the creature rather than to the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural practices. Likewise, men gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameful acts with men and received in their own persons the fitting penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since these people did not see fit to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their depraved way of thinking and to all types of vile behavior.
Behold, we are now going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death. Then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and on the third day he will be raised to life.
If someone says, “I love God,” but at the same time hates his brother, he is a liar. For whoever does not love the brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
Gaze upon the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or store in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of far greater value than they?
There is only one thing I ask of the Lord, just one thing I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, so that I may enjoy the beauty of the Lord and gaze on his temple.
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.”
The Lord God said, “Behold, man has become like one of us, for he has knowledge of that which is good and that which is evil. Now, we must prevent him from reaching out and taking the fruit of the tree of life lest he eat it and live forever.” The Lord God cast him out of the Garden of Eden; henceforth he was to labor tilling the soil from which he had come.
My soul longs for you throughout the night, and my spirit within me seeks your presence. For when your judgments are revealed to the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn to practice justice.