Therefore, my beloved brethren, stand firm and immovable, devoting yourselves completely to the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. Since you have been faithful in small matters, I will give you much greater responsibilities. Come and share your master’s joy.’
It is the Lord, your God, whom you are to follow. You must fear him and observe his commandments and obey what he tells you and serve him and hold fast to him.
Brethren, you were called to freedom. However, make sure that you do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Instead, serve one another in love.
And so now, O Israel, what does the Lord, your God, require of you but to fear the Lord, your God, to walk in all of his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, and to observe the commandments and the statutes that I am giving you today for your own good.
All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in uprightness, so that the man of God may be proficient and equipped for good work of every kind.
This must not be so with you. Instead, whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your servant.
For God would not be so unjust as to ignore your work and the love that you have shown for his name by the services you have rendered to the saints and still continue to render.
If it seems wrong to you to serve the Lord, then today you must choose whom you will serve, whether it be the gods that your fathers served on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites who dwell in the land. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
Take heed to follow the commandments and the laws that Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you: to love the Lord, your God, and to walk in his ways and to observe his commandments, holding fast to him and serving him with all your heart and all your soul.
No one can serve two masters. For you will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
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.
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from acts that lead to death so that we may worship the living God.
They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my own special possession on the day when I act, and I will have compassion on them as a father has compassion on the son who serves him.