Luke 15 Cross References - MSB

¹ Now all the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around to listen to Jesus. ² So the Pharisees and scribes began to grumble: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” ³ Then Jesus told them this parable: ⁴ “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the pasture and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? ⁵ And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, ⁶ comes home, and calls together his friends and neighbors to tell them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep!’ ⁷ In the same way, I tell you that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous ones who do not need to repent. ⁸ Or what woman who has ten silver coins and loses one of them does not light a lamp, sweep her house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹ And when she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors to say, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost coin.’ ¹⁰ In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.” ¹¹ Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² The younger son said to him, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. ¹³ After a few days, the younger son got everything together and journeyed to a distant country, where he squandered his wealth in wild living. ¹⁴ After he had spent all he had, a severe famine swept through that country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵ So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. ¹⁶ He longed to fill his belly with the pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him a thing. ¹⁷ Finally he came to his senses and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have plenty of food? But here I am, starving to death! ¹⁸ I will get up and go back to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’ ²⁰ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still in the distance, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. ²¹ The son declared, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²² But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate. ²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate. ²⁵ Meanwhile the older son was in the field, and as he approached the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶ So he called one of the servants and asked what was going on. ²⁷ ‘Your brother has returned,’ he said, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has him back safe and sound.’ ²⁸ The older son became angry and refused to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him. ²⁹ But he answered his father, ‘Look, all these years I have served you and never disobeyed a commandment of yours. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰ But when this son of yours returns from squandering your wealth with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ ³¹ ‘Son, you are always with me,’ the father said, ‘and all that is mine is yours. ³² But it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

²⁷ But if a wicked man turns from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life.

¹⁰ Later, as Jesus was dining at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Him and His disciples. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they asked His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹² On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

²⁸ But what do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first one and said, ‘Son, go and work today in my vineyard.’ ²⁹ ‘I will not,’ he replied. But later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰ Then the man went to the second son and told him the same thing. ‘I will, sir,’ he said. But he did not go. ³¹ Which of the two did the will of his father?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.

²⁹ Then Levi hosted a great banquet for Jesus at his house. A large crowd of tax collectors was there, along with others who were eating with them. ³⁰ But their scribes and the Pharisees complained to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” ³¹ Jesus answered, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

²⁹ All the people who heard this, even the tax collectors, acknowledged God’s justice. For they had received the baptism of John.

³⁰ And indeed, some who are last will be first, and some who are first will be last.”

²⁰ The law came in so that the trespass would increase; but where sin increased, grace increased all the more,

¹⁵ This is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.

¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they asked His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

³⁰ But their scribes and the Pharisees complained to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

³⁴ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at this glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’

³⁹ When the Pharisee who had invited Jesus saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, He would know who this is and what kind of woman is touching Him—for she is a sinner!”

²⁹ But he answered his father, ‘Look, all these years I have served you and never disobeyed a commandment of yours. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰ But when this son of yours returns from squandering your wealth with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

⁷ And all who saw this began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinful man!”

³ and said, “You visited uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

⁹ I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. ¹⁰ I was not including the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy or swindlers or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. ¹¹ But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a verbal abuser, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

¹² For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself, for fear of those in the circumcision group.

¹⁷⁶ I have strayed like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, for I have not forgotten Your commandments.

⁶ We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.

⁶ My people are lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray, causing them to roam the mountains. They have wandered from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their resting place.

⁸ ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, because My flock lacks a shepherd and has become prey and food for every wild beast, and because My shepherds did not search for My flock but fed themselves instead,

¹¹ For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, I Myself will search for My flock and seek them out. ¹² As a shepherd looks for his scattered sheep when he is among the flock, so I will look for My flock. I will rescue them from all the places to which they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.

¹⁶ I will seek the lost, bring back the strays, bind up the broken, and strengthen the weak; but the sleek and strong I will destroy. I will shepherd them with justice.’

³¹ ‘You are My flock, the sheep of My pasture, My people, and I am your God,’ declares the Lord GOD.”

¹¹ He replied, “If one of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out?

¹² What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? ¹³ And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices more over that one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. ¹⁴ In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

¹⁵ “You hypocrites!” the Lord replied. “Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it to water?

⁴ “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the pasture and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? ⁵ And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, ⁶ comes home, and calls together his friends and neighbors to tell them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep!’ ⁷ In the same way, I tell you that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous ones who do not need to repent.

¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

¹⁵ just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father. And I lay down My life for the sheep. ¹⁶ I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them in as well, and they will listen to My voice. Then there will be one flock and one shepherd.

²⁶ But because you are not My sheep, you refuse to believe, just as I said to you. ²⁷ My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. ²⁸ I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand.

¹ You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on another. For on whatever grounds you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

²⁵ For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

¹⁰ Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and His arm establishes His rule. His reward is with Him, and His recompense accompanies Him. ¹¹ He tends His flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart. He gently leads the nursing ewes.

³ “Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been sustained from the womb, carried along since birth. ⁴ Even to your old age, I will be the same, and I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you, and I will carry you; I will sustain you and deliver you.

¹⁰ Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush Him and to cause Him to suffer; and when His soul is made a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. ¹¹ After the anguish of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities.

⁵ For as a young man marries a young woman, so your sons will marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you.

¹² And they will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of The LORD; and you will be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.

⁹ In all their distress, He too was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them. In His love and compassion He redeemed them; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

⁴¹ Yes, I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul. ⁴² For this is what the LORD says: Just as I have brought all this great disaster on this people, so I will bring on them all the good I have promised them.

²³ Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Lord GOD. Wouldn’t I prefer that he turn from his ways and live?

¹¹ Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’

⁴ He will stand and shepherd His flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majestic name of the LORD His God. And they will dwell securely, for then His greatness will extend to the ends of the earth.

¹⁸ Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?

¹⁷ The LORD your God is among you; He is mighty to save. He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing.”

²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate. ²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate.

³² But it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

⁹ Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham.

⁴³ And Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

³⁴ Jesus explained, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘There are still four months until the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are ripe for harvest.

¹¹ I have told you these things so that My joy may abide in you and your joy may be complete.

¹ Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord. He approached the high priest ² and requested letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any men or women belonging to the Way, he could bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem. ³ As Saul drew near to Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. ⁴ He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” ⁵ “Who are You, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” replied the Lord. ⁶ “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” ⁷ The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless. They heard the voice but did not see anyone. ⁸ Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could not see a thing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. ⁹ For three days he was without sight, and he did not eat or drink anything. ¹⁰ In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord spoke to him in a vision, “Ananias!” “Here I am, Lord,” he answered. ¹¹ “Get up!” the Lord told him. “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. ¹² In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.” ¹³ But Ananias answered, “Lord, many people have told me about this man and all the harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem. ¹⁴ And now he is here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on Your name.” ¹⁵ “Go!” said the Lord. “This man is My chosen instrument to carry My name before the Gentiles and their kings, and before the people of Israel. ¹⁶ I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.”

²⁰ And Isaiah boldly says: “I was found by those who did not seek Me; I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me.” ²¹ But as for Israel he says: “All day long I have held out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”

¹⁹ and the surpassing greatness of His power to us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of His mighty strength, ²⁰ which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms,

³ All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath. ⁴ But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,

¹⁰ For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.

⁷ I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace, given me through the working of His power.

⁵ because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with great conviction—just as you know we lived among you for your sake.

²⁶ Then they will come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, who has taken them captive to his will.

³ For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, misled, and enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures—living in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. ⁴ But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, ⁵ He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. ⁶ This is the Spirit He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that, having been justified by His grace, we would become heirs with the hope of eternal life.

² Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

¹⁰ Be glad for Jerusalem and rejoice over her, all who love her. Rejoice greatly with her, all who mourn over her, ¹¹ so that you may nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts; you may drink deeply and delight yourselves in her glorious abundance.

¹³ And suddenly there appeared with the angel a great multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying: ¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men!”

⁷ In the same way, I tell you that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous ones who do not need to repent.

¹⁰ In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.”

²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate.

²⁹ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom stands and listens for him, and is overjoyed to hear the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.

¹⁴ You are My friends if you do what I command you.

²³ When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to abide in the Lord with all their hearts.

³ Sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, recounting the conversion of the Gentiles and bringing great joy to all the brothers.

⁴ In every prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy,

¹⁷ But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.

¹ Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you must stand firm in the Lord, my beloved.

¹⁹ After all, who is our hope, our joy, our crown of boasting, if it is not you yourselves in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming?

⁷ For this reason, brothers, in all our persecution and distress, we have been reassured about you, because of your faith. ⁸ For now we can go on living, as long as you are standing firm in the Lord. ⁹ How can we adequately thank God for you in return for our great joy over you in His presence?

¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

¹² There is a generation of those who are pure in their own eyes and yet unwashed of their filth.

¹³ And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices more over that one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.

³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

²⁹ But he answered his father, ‘Look, all these years I have served you and never disobeyed a commandment of yours. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.

¹⁵ So He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is prized among men is detestable before God.

⁹ To some who trusted in their own righteousness and viewed others with contempt, He also told this parable: ¹⁰ “Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like the other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.

⁹ Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.

⁶ as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness in the law, faultless. ⁷ But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ.

¹² As a shepherd looks for his scattered sheep when he is among the flock, so I will look for My flock. I will rescue them from all the places to which they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.

¹⁶ I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them in as well, and they will listen to My voice. Then there will be one flock and one shepherd.

⁵² and not only for the nation, but also for the scattered children of God, to gather them together into one.

¹⁷ He came and preached peace to you who were far away and to those who were near.

¹³ And when he prayed to Him, the LORD received his plea and heard his petition; so He brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD is God. ¹⁴ After this, Manasseh rebuilt the outer wall of the City of David from west of Gihon in the valley to the entrance of the Fish Gate, and he brought it around the hill of Ophel and heightened it considerably. He also stationed military commanders in all the fortified cities of Judah. ¹⁵ He removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, along with all the altars he had built on the temple mount and in Jerusalem, and he dumped them outside the city. ¹⁶ Then he restored the altar of the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings on it, and he told Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel. ¹⁷ Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to the LORD their God. ¹⁸ As for the rest of the acts of Manasseh, along with his prayer to his God and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, they are indeed written in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. ¹⁹ His prayer and how God received his plea, as well as all his sin and unfaithfulness, and the sites where he built high places and set up Asherah poles and idols before he humbled himself, they are indeed written in the Records of the Seers.

³² For I take no pleasure in anyone’s death, declares the Lord GOD. So repent and live!

¹⁰ See that you do not look down on any of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father in heaven.

¹⁴ In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

⁵ But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here; He has risen, just as He said! Come, see the place where the Lord lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell His disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him.’ See, I have told you.”

¹ Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census should be taken of the whole empire. ² This was the first census to take place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ And everyone went to his own town to register. ⁴ So Joseph also went up from Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, since he was from the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to him in marriage and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for her Child to be born. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn, a Son. She wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. ⁸ And there were shepherds residing in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks by night. ⁹ Just then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid! For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: ¹¹ Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord! ¹² And this will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

⁴⁷ Therefore I tell you, because her many sins have been forgiven, she has loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

⁵ No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

¹⁹ But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out, saying,

³ One day at about the ninth hour, he had a clear vision of an angel of God who came to him and said, “Cornelius!” ⁴ Cornelius stared at him in fear and asked, “What is it, Lord?” The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have ascended as a memorial offering before God. ⁵ Now send men to Joppa to call for Simon who is called Peter.

¹⁸ When they heard this, their objections were put to rest, and they glorified God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”

¹⁰ Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

¹⁵ For perhaps this is why he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for good—

¹⁴ Are not the angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

¹¹ Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels and living creatures and elders encircling the throne, and their number was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands. ¹² In a loud voice they were saying: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” ¹³ And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever. Amen!” ¹⁴ And the four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

²³ When Jesus returned to the temple courts and began to teach, the chief priests and elders of the people came up to Him. “By what authority are You doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave You this authority?” ²⁴ “I will also ask you one question,” Jesus replied, “and if you answer Me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. ²⁵ What was the source of John’s baptism? Was it from heaven or from men?” They deliberated among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will ask, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ ²⁶ But if we say, ‘From men,’ we are afraid of the people, for they all regard John as a prophet.” ²⁷ So they answered, “We do not know.” And Jesus replied, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

¹⁶ when that man assigns his inheritance to his sons he must not appoint the son of the beloved wife as the firstborn over the son of the unloved wife. ¹⁷ Instead, he must acknowledge the firstborn, the son of his unloved wife, by giving him a double portion of all that he has. For that son is the firstfruits of his father’s strength; the right of the firstborn belongs to him.

⁵ The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; You have made my lot secure. ⁶ The lines of my boundary have fallen in pleasant places; surely my inheritance is delightful.

¹⁴ from such men, O LORD, by Your hand—from men of the world whose portion is in this life. May You fill the bellies of Your treasured ones and satisfy their sons, so they leave their abundance to their children.

⁴⁴ For they all contributed out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”

³⁰ But when this son of yours returns from squandering your wealth with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

¹ Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. ² And he did evil in the sight of the LORD by following the abominations of the nations that the LORD had driven out before the Israelites. ³ For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had torn down, and he raised up altars for the Baals and made Asherah poles. And he worshiped and served all the host of heaven. ⁴ Manasseh also built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “My Name will remain in Jerusalem forever.” ⁵ In both courtyards of the house of the LORD, he built altars to all the host of heaven. ⁶ He sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Hinnom. He practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did great evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger. ⁷ Manasseh even took the carved image he had made and set it up in the house of God, of which God had said to David and his son Solomon, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will establish My Name forever. ⁸ I will never again cause the feet of the Israelites to leave the land that I assigned to your fathers, if only they are careful to do all that I have commanded them through Moses—all the laws, statutes, and judgments.” ⁹ So Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites. ¹⁰ And the LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they did not listen.

¹³ They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace. ¹⁴ Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways. ¹⁵ Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’

¹⁷ They said to God, ‘Depart from us. What can the Almighty do to us?’ ¹⁸ But it was He who filled their houses with good things; so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.

⁴ In his pride the wicked man does not seek Him; in all his schemes there is no God. ⁵ He is secure in his ways at all times; Your lofty judgments are far from him; he sneers at all his foes. ⁶ He says to himself, “I will not be moved; from age to age I am free of distress.”

²⁷ Those far from You will surely perish; You destroy all who are unfaithful to You.

⁸ Keep your path far from her; do not go near the door of her house, ⁹ lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel; ¹⁰ lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner. ¹¹ At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent, ¹² and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! ¹³ I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors. ¹⁴ I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.”

²⁶ For the levy of the prostitute is poverty, and the adulteress preys upon your very life.

⁹ Whoever is slothful in his work is brother to him who destroys.

¹⁷ He who loves pleasure will become poor; the one who loves wine and oil will never be rich.

²⁰ Precious treasures and oil are in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish man consumes them.

¹⁹ Listen, my son, and be wise, and guide your heart on the right course. ²⁰ Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat. ²¹ For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe them in rags. ²² Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

⁸ Like a bird that strays from its nest is a man who wanders from his home.

⁷ A discerning son keeps the law, but a companion of gluttons disgraces his father.

³ A man who loves wisdom brings joy to his father, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth.

⁹ Rejoice, O young man, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment. ¹⁰ So banish sorrow from your heart, and cast off pain from your body, for youth and vigor are fleeting.

⁴ Alas, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children of depravity! They have forsaken the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him.

¹³ But look, there is joy and gladness, butchering of cattle and slaughtering of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

¹¹ Get out of the way; turn off the road. Rid us of the Holy One of Israel!”

¹² “Come, let me get the wine, let us imbibe the strong drink, and tomorrow will be like today, only far better!”

⁵ This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your fathers find in Me that they strayed so far from Me, and followed worthless idols, and became worthless themselves?

¹³ “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

¹⁷ Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the LORD your God when He led you in the way? ¹⁸ Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates? ¹⁹ Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the LORD your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts.

³¹ You people of this generation, consider the word of the LORD: “Have I been a wilderness to Israel or a land of dense darkness? Why do My people say, ‘We are free to roam; we will come to You no more’?

³ You dismiss the day of calamity and bring near a reign of violence. ⁴ You lie on beds inlaid with ivory, and lounge upon your couches. You dine on lambs from the flock and calves from the stall. ⁵ You improvise songs on the harp like David and invent your own musical instruments. ⁶ You drink wine by the bowlful and anoint yourselves with the finest oils, but you fail to grieve over the ruin of Joseph. ⁷ Therefore, you will now go into exile as the first of the captives, and your feasting and lounging will come to an end.

³ ‘My people, what have I done to you? Testify against Me how I have wearied you!

¹ Jesus also said to His disciples, “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.

¹⁹ Now there was a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, who lived each day in joyous splendor.

¹³ Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. ¹⁴ Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.

¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

³ For we have spent enough of our past lifetime carrying out the same desires as the Gentiles: living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry. ⁴ Because of this, they consider it strange of you not to plunge with them into the same flood of reckless indiscretion, and they heap abuse on you.

¹³ They will receive the wages is the wages of their wickedness. They consider it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deception as they feast with you.

¹¹ So the LORD brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

²⁷ Therefore I stretched out My hand against you and reduced your portion. I gave you over to the desire of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd conduct.

⁹ Therefore I will take back My grain in its time and My new wine in its season; I will take away My wool and linen, which were given to cover her nakedness. ¹⁰ And then I will expose her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of My hands. ¹¹ I will put an end to all her exultation: her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—all her appointed feasts. ¹² I will destroy her vines and fig trees, which she thinks are the wages paid by her lovers. So I will make them into a thicket, and the beasts of the field will devour them. ¹³ I will punish her for the days of the Baals when she burned incense to them, when she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers. But Me she forgot,” declares the LORD. ¹⁴ “Therefore, behold, I will allure her and lead her to the wilderness, and speak to her tenderly.

⁹ And in that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime. ¹⁰ I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day. ¹¹ Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. ¹² People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east, seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

³ So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him, “This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, so that they may worship Me.

²² In the time of his distress, King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the LORD.

⁵ Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.

⁹ Unless the LORD of Hosts had left us a few survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah. ¹⁰ Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah! ¹¹ “What good to Me is your multitude of sacrifices?” says the LORD. “I am full from the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I take no delight in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. ¹² When you come to appear before Me, who has required this of you—this trampling of My courts? ¹³ Bring your worthless offerings no more; your incense is detestable to Me—your New Moons, Sabbaths, and convocations. I cannot endure iniquity in a solemn assembly.

¹⁷ I was enraged by his sinful greed, so I struck him and hid My face in anger; yet he kept turning back to the desires of his heart.

³ O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

⁴ So you are to tell them this is what the LORD says: “Do men fall and not get up again? Does one turn away and not return? ⁵ Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return. ⁶ I have listened and heard; they do not speak what is right. No one repents of his wickedness, asking, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone has pursued his own course like a horse charging into battle.

¹⁸ I have surely heard Ephraim’s moaning: ‘You disciplined me severely, like an untrained calf. Restore me, that I may return, for You are the LORD my God. ¹⁹ After I returned, I repented; and after I was instructed, I struck my thigh in grief. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth.’

⁵² So now you must bear your disgrace, since you have brought justification for your sisters. For they appear more righteous than you, because your sins were more vile than theirs. So you too must bear your shame and disgrace, since you have made your sisters appear righteous.

⁶³ so that when I make atonement for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your disgrace, declares the Lord GOD.”

⁶ I will pelt you with filth and treat you with contempt; I will make a spectacle of you.

⁹ “So I in turn have made you despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not kept My ways, but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”

³² There on the hillside a large herd of pigs was feeding. So the demons begged Jesus to let them enter the pigs, and He gave them permission. ³³ Then the demons came out of the man and went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. ³⁴ When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside.

¹³ After a few days, the younger son got everything together and journeyed to a distant country, where he squandered his wealth in wild living.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen. ²⁶ For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

²² But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life.

⁹ Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, ¹⁰ nor the covetous, nor thieves, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

² in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath.

¹⁷ So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the other Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. ¹⁸ They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts. ¹⁹ Having lost all sense of shame, they have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity, with a craving for more.

¹¹ Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. ¹² For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

⁵ Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶ Because of these, the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience. ⁷ When you lived among them, you also used to walk in these ways.

²⁵ He must gently reprove those who oppose him, in the hope that God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. ²⁶ Then they will come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, who has taken them captive to his will.

³ For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, misled, and enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures—living in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

²¹ Even though I have given her time to repent of her immorality, she is unwilling. ²² Behold, I will cast her onto a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her will suffer great tribulation unless they repent of her deeds.

²² I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before You.

⁴ Look to my right and see; no one attends to me. There is no refuge for me; no one cares for my soul.

²⁰ He feeds on ashes. His deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”

² Why spend money on that which is not bread, and your labor on that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of foods.

³ “But come here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes!

⁵ Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets; those brought up in crimson huddle in ash heaps.

¹ Ephraim chases the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; he multiplies lies and violence; he makes a covenant with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt.

² saying: “In my distress I called to the LORD, and He answered me. From the belly of Sheol I called for help, and You heard my voice. ³ For You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current swirled about me; all Your breakers and waves swept over me. ⁴ At this, I said, ‘I have been banished from Your sight; yet I will look once more toward Your holy temple.’ ⁵ The waters engulfed me to take my life; the watery depths closed around me; the seaweed wrapped around my head. ⁶ To the roots of the mountains I descended; the earth beneath me barred me in forever! But You raised my life from the pit, O LORD my God! ⁷ As my life was fading away, I remembered the LORD. My prayer went up to You, to Your holy temple. ⁸ Those who cling to worthless idols forsake His loving devotion.

¹⁹ I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to escalating wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. ²⁰ For when you were slaves to sin, you were free of obligation to righteousness. ²¹ What fruit did you reap at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The outcome of those things is death.

²⁰ Like one waking from a dream, so You, O Lord, awaken and despise their form.

³ This is an evil in everything that is done under the sun: There is one fate for everyone. Furthermore, the hearts of men are full of evil and madness while they are alive, and afterward they join the dead.

¹⁹ After I returned, I repented; and after I was instructed, I struck my thigh in grief. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth.’

⁷ In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands she received no help. Her enemies looked upon her, laughing at her downfall.

²⁸ Because he considered and turned from all the transgressions he had committed, he will surely live; he will not die.

³⁵ So the people went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man whom the demons had left, sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.

¹⁸ I will get up and go back to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’

²³ In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham from afar, with Lazarus by his side.

³⁷ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and asked Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

²⁹ Calling for lights, the jailer rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. ³⁰ Then he brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

¹¹ I frequently had them punished in the synagogues, and I tried to make them blaspheme. In my raging fury against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them. ¹² In this pursuit I was on my way to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. ¹³ About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. ¹⁴ We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice say to me in Hebrew, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ ¹⁵ ‘Who are You, Lord?’ I asked. ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ He replied. ¹⁶ ‘But get up and stand on your feet. For I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen from Me and what I will show you. ¹⁷ I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them ¹⁸ to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those sanctified by faith in Me.’ ¹⁹ So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.

⁴ But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!

¹⁴ So it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

⁴ But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, ⁵ He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. ⁶ This is the Spirit He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

¹⁶ Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. ¹⁷ Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow. ¹⁸ He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of His creation.

⁴⁰ But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me— ⁴¹ and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled and they will make amends for their iniquity,

⁴⁷ and when they come to their senses in the land to which they were taken, and they repent and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong; we have acted wickedly,’ ⁴⁸ and when they return to You with all their heart and soul in the land of the enemies who took them captive, and when they pray to You in the direction of the land that You gave to their fathers, the city You have chosen, and the house I have built for Your Name,

³⁰ The rest of them fled into the city of Aphek, where the wall fell on twenty-seven thousand of the remaining men. Ben-hadad also fled to the city and hid in an inner room. ³¹ Then the servants of Ben-hadad said to him, “Look now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful. Let us go out to the king of Israel with sackcloth around our waists and ropes around our heads. Perhaps he will spare your life.”

³ Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate, and they said to one another, “Why just sit here until we die? ⁴ If we say, ‘Let us go into the city,’ we will die there from the famine in the city; but if we sit here, we will also die. So come now, let us go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they let us live, we will live; if they kill us, we will die.”

¹² And in his distress, Manasseh sought the favor of the LORD his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his fathers. ¹³ And when he prayed to Him, the LORD received his plea and heard his petition; so He brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD is God.

¹⁹ His prayer and how God received his plea, as well as all his sin and unfaithfulness, and the sites where he built high places and set up Asherah poles and idols before he humbled himself, they are indeed written in the Records of the Seers.

²⁷ Then he sings before men with these words: ‘I have sinned and perverted what was right; yet I did not get what I deserved. ²⁸ He redeemed my soul from going down to the Pit, and I will live to see the light.’

⁸ And if men are bound with chains, caught in cords of affliction, ⁹ then He tells them their deeds and how arrogantly they have transgressed. ¹⁰ He opens their ears to correction and commands that they turn from iniquity.

¹¹ For the sake of Your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, for it is great.

³ When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long. ⁴ For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was drained as in the summer heat. Selah ⁵ Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not hide my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. ⁴ Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be proved right when You speak and blameless when You judge. ⁵ Surely I was brought forth in iniquity; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

³ The ropes of death entangled me; the anguish of Sheol overcame me; I was confronted by trouble and sorrow. ⁴ Then I called on the name of the LORD: “O LORD, deliver my soul!” ⁵ The LORD is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. ⁶ The LORD preserves the simplehearted; I was helpless, and He saved me. ⁷ Return to your rest, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.

¹³ Do not withhold discipline from a child; although you strike him with a rod, he will not die.

¹⁶ Yet You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O LORD, are our Father; our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name.

¹⁹ Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me.

⁶ For there will be a day when watchmen will call out on the hills of Ephraim, ‘Arise, let us go up to Zion, to the LORD our God!’” ⁷ For this is what the LORD says: “Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations! Make your praises heard, and say, ‘O LORD, save Your people, the remnant of Israel!’ ⁸ Behold, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, including the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor. They will return as a great assembly! ⁹ They will come with weeping, and by their supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk beside streams of waters, on a level path where they will not stumble. For I am Israel’s Father, and Ephraim is My firstborn.”

²⁰ Is not Ephraim a precious son to Me, a delightful child? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore My heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him,” declares the LORD.

⁴ “In those days and at that time, declares the LORD, the children of Israel and the children of Judah will come together, weeping as they come, and will seek the LORD their God. ⁵ They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and join themselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

¹⁸ So I say, “My strength has perished, along with my hope from the LORD.” ¹⁹ Remember my affliction and wandering, the wormwood and the gall. ²⁰ Surely my soul remembers and is humbled within me. ²¹ Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: ²² Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail.

²⁹ Let him bury his face in the dust—perhaps there is still hope.

⁴⁰ Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the LORD.

²⁶ As for the command to leave the stump of the tree with its roots, your kingdom will be restored to you as soon as you acknowledge that Heaven rules.

⁶ Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her path with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so she cannot find her way. ⁷ She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will return to my first husband, for then I was better off than now.’

¹ Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled by your iniquity. ² Bring your confessions and return to the LORD. Say to Him: “Take away all our iniquity and receive us graciously, that we may present the fruit of our lips. ³ Assyria will not save us, nor will we ride on horses. We will never again say, ‘Our gods!’ to the work of our own hands. For in You the fatherless find compassion.”

⁴ At this, I said, ‘I have been banished from Your sight; yet I will look once more toward Your holy temple.’

⁹ Who knows? God may turn and relent; He may turn from His fierce anger, so that we will not perish.”

⁶ Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan.

⁹ So then, this is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.

¹⁴ For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

¹¹ So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

² So Jesus told them, “When you pray, say: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

²¹ The son declared, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

¹³ But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’

⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and His word is not in us.

¹⁰ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness You have shown Your servant. Indeed, with only my staff I came across the Jordan, but now I have become two camps.

²⁴ The Gibeonites answered, “Your servants were told clearly that the LORD your God had commanded His servant Moses to give you all the land and wipe out all its inhabitants before you. So we greatly feared for our lives because of you, and that is why we have done this. ²⁵ Now we are in your hands. Do to us whatever seems good and right to you.”

⁶ Therefore I retract my words, and I repent in dust and ashes.”

¹⁰ For better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

²⁶ But Jesus replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” ²⁷ “Yes, Lord,” she said, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

⁸ When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees. “Go away from me, Lord,” he said, “for I am a sinful man.”

⁶ So Jesus went with them. But when He was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends with the message: “Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I am not worthy to have You come under my roof. ⁷ That is why I did not consider myself worthy to come to You. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.

⁹ For I am the least of the apostles and am unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

¹³ I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man; yet because I had acted in ignorance and unbelief, I was shown mercy. ¹⁴ And the grace of our Lord overflowed to me, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ This is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst. ¹⁶ But for this very reason I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Jesus Christ might display all His patience as an example to those who would believe in Him for eternal life.

⁸ Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, so that in due time He may exalt you.

⁴ Esau, however, ran to him and embraced him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. And they both wept.

¹⁴ Then Joseph threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin wept as they embraced.

²⁹ Joseph prepared his chariot and went there to meet his father Israel. Joseph presented himself to him, embraced him, and wept profusely.

² and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey His voice with all your heart and all your soul according to everything I am giving you today, ³ then He will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you from all the nations to which the LORD your God has scattered you. ⁴ Even if you have been banished to the farthest horizon, He will gather you and return you from there.

⁵ For You, O Lord, are kind and forgiving, rich in loving devotion to all who call on You.

¹⁵ But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness.

¹⁰ He has not dealt with us according to our sins or repaid us according to our iniquities. ¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him. ¹² As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. ¹³ As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.

¹⁵ “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the son of her womb? Even if she could forget, I will not forget you!

⁶ Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. ⁷ Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon. ⁸ “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. ⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.

¹⁸ I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him and his mourners,

⁶ Then I passed by and saw you wallowing in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, ‘Live!’ There I said to you, ‘Live!’ ⁷ I made you thrive like a plant of the field. You grew up and matured and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, but you were naked and bare. ⁸ Then I passed by and saw you, and you were indeed old enough for love. So I spread My cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I pledged Myself to you, entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, declares the Lord GOD.

⁸ How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

¹⁸ Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion? ¹⁹ He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.

³⁹ This promise belongs to you and your children and to all who are far off—to all whom the Lord our God will call to Himself.”

³⁷ They all wept openly as they embraced Paul and kissed him.

⁴ Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be proved right when You speak and blameless when You judge.

² Do not bring Your servant into judgment, for no one alive is righteous before You.

¹³ Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God. You have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every green tree and have not obeyed My voice,’” declares the LORD.

⁴ Or do you disregard the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?

¹² By sinning against your brothers in this way and wounding their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.

⁴² Then Pharaoh removed the signet ring from his finger, put it on Joseph’s finger, clothed him in garments of fine linen, and placed a gold chain around his neck.

²⁵ May the bolts of your gate be iron and bronze, and may your strength match your days.”

¹⁰ So the king removed the signet ring from his finger and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews.

² The king removed the signet ring he had recovered from Haman and presented it to Mordecai. And Esther appointed Mordecai over the estate of Haman.

³³ He makes my feet like those of a deer and stations me upon the heights.

¹³ All glorious is the princess in her chamber; her gown is embroidered with gold.

⁹ May Your priests be clothed with righteousness, and Your saints shout for joy.

¹⁶ I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints will sing out in joy.

¹ How beautiful are your sandaled feet, O daughter of the prince! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the handiwork of a master.

¹⁰ I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom wears a priestly headdress, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

⁹ Then I bathed you with water, rinsed off your blood, and anointed you with oil. ¹⁰ I clothed you in embroidered cloth and gave you sandals of fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. ¹¹ I adorned you with jewelry, and I put bracelets on your wrists and a chain around your neck. ¹² I put a ring in your nose, earrings on your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head. ¹³ So you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was made of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey, and oil. You became very beautiful and rose to be queen.

³ Now Joshua was dressed in filthy garments as he stood before the angel. ⁴ So the angel said to those standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes!” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have removed your iniquity, and I will clothe you with splendid robes.” ⁵ Then I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So a clean turban was placed on his head, and they clothed him, as the angel of the LORD stood by.

¹¹ But when the king came in to see the guests, he spotted a man who was not dressed in wedding clothes. ¹² ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But the man was speechless.

²² And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all and upon all who believe. There is no distinction,

¹⁵ For you did not receive a spirit of slavery that returns you to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

¹⁴ Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.

²⁷ For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

⁵ to redeem those under the law, that we might receive our adoption as sons. ⁶ And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

¹³ And in Him, having heard and believed the word of truth—the gospel of your salvation—you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is the pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession, to the praise of His glory.

²² to put off your former way of life, your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be renewed in the spirit of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace.

¹⁷ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will give the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone inscribed with a new name, known only to the one who receives it.

⁴ But you do have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments, and because they are worthy, they will walk with Me in white. ⁵ Like them, he who overcomes will be dressed in white. And I will never blot out his name from the Book of Life, but I will confess his name before My Father and His angels.

¹⁸ I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, white garments so that you may be clothed and your shameful nakedness not exposed, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

¹¹ Then each of them was given a white robe and told to rest a little while longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers, were killed, just as they had been killed.

⁹ After this I looked and saw a multitude too large to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.

¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me: “These in white robes,” he asked, “who are they, and where have they come from?” ¹⁴ “Sir,” I answered, “you know.” So he replied, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

⁸ She was given clothing of fine linen, bright and pure.” For the fine linen she wears is the righteous acts of the saints.

⁷ Meanwhile, Abraham ran to the herd, selected a tender and choice calf, and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it.

⁵ My soul is satisfied as with the richest of foods; with joyful lips my mouth will praise You.

² She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table.

⁶ On this mountain the LORD of Hosts will prepare a banquet for all the peoples, a feast of aged wine, of choice meat, of finely aged wine.

¹³ Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: “My servants will eat, but you will go hungry; My servants will drink, but you will go thirsty; My servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame. ¹⁴ My servants will shout for joy with a glad heart, but you will cry out with a heavy heart and wail with a broken spirit.

² “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his servants to call those he had invited to the banquet, but they refused to come. ⁴ Again, he sent other servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’ ⁵ But they paid no attention and went away, one to his field, another to his business. ⁶ The rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. ⁷ When he heard this, the king was enraged, and he sent his troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city. ⁸ Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited were not worthy. ⁹ Go therefore to the crossroads and invite to the banquet as many as you can find.’ ¹⁰ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered everyone they could find, both evil and good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. ¹¹ But when the king came in to see the guests, he spotted a man who was not dressed in wedding clothes. ¹² ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But the man was speechless. ¹³ Then the king told the servants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, take him away, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ¹⁴ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

²⁸ “Enough!” declared Israel. “My son Joseph is still alive! I will go to see him before I die.”

¹⁰ So the redeemed of the LORD will return and enter Zion with singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee.

¹¹ so that you may nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts; you may drink deeply and delight yourselves in her glorious abundance.

¹² They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will be radiant over the bounty of the LORD—the grain, new wine, and oil, and the young of the flocks and herds. Their life will be like a well-watered garden, and never again will they languish. ¹³ Then the maidens will rejoice with dancing, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into joy, and give them comfort and joy for their sorrow. ¹⁴ I will fill the souls of the priests abundantly, and will fill My people with My goodness,” declares the LORD. ¹⁵ This is what the LORD says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” ¹⁶ This is what the LORD says: “Keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for the reward for your work will come, declares the LORD. Then your children will return from the land of the enemy. ¹⁷ So there is hope for your future, declares the LORD, and your children will return to their own land.

⁴ You have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bound up the injured, brought back the strays, or searched for the lost. Instead, you have ruled them with violence and cruelty.

¹⁰ See that you do not look down on any of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father in heaven. ¹¹ For the Son of Man came to save the lost. ¹² What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? ¹³ And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices more over that one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.

²² When they arrived at Bethsaida, some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him.

¹⁹ Behold, I am giving you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you.

⁴ “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the pasture and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?

⁷ In the same way, I tell you that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous ones who do not need to repent. ⁸ Or what woman who has ten silver coins and loses one of them does not light a lamp, sweep her house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹ And when she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors to say, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost coin.’

²¹ For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He wishes.

²⁴ Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment. Indeed, he has crossed over from death to life. ²⁵ Truly, truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.

¹¹ So you too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹³ Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and present the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness.

² For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

¹⁵ For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.

²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

¹⁴ For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that if One died for all, therefore all died. ¹⁵ And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again.

¹ And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!

¹³ When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses,

⁶ But she who lives for pleasure is dead even while she is still alive.

¹² These men are hidden reefs in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted.

¹ “To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of the One who holds the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation for being alive, yet you are dead.

²⁰ Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her with tambourines and dancing.

¹⁴ And David, wearing a linen ephod, danced with all his might before the LORD,

¹¹ You turned my mourning into dancing; You peeled off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

¹ A song of ascents. When the LORD restored the captives of Zion, we were like dreamers.

³ Let them praise His name with dancing, and make music to Him with tambourine and harp.

⁴ Praise Him with tambourine and dancing; praise Him with strings and flute.

⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

⁴ Again I will build you, and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel. Again you will take up your tambourines and go out in joyful dancing.

³² They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to one another: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge for you, and you did not weep.’

¹¹ Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² The younger son said to him, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

¹⁷ So Ananias went to the house, and when he arrived, he placed his hands on Saul. “Brother Saul,” he said, “the Lord, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here, has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

¹³ came and stood beside me. ‘Brother Saul,’ he said, ‘receive your sight.’ And at that moment I could see him.

¹⁶ no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a beloved brother. He is especially beloved to me, but even more so to you, both in person and in the Lord.

⁵ but He had no regard for Cain and his offering. So Cain became very angry, and his countenance fell. ⁶ “Why are you angry,” said the LORD to Cain, “and why has your countenance fallen? ⁷ If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you refuse to do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires you, but you must master it.”

²⁸ Now when David’s oldest brother Eliab heard him speaking to the men, his anger burned against David. “Why have you come down here?” he asked. “And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride and wickedness of heart—you have come down to see the battle!”

⁸ And Saul was furious and resented this song. “They have ascribed tens of thousands to David,” he said, “but only thousands to me. What more can he have but the kingdom?”

⁵ They say, ‘Keep to yourself; do not come near me, for I am holier than you!’ Such people are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all day long.

⁵ You who tremble at His word, hear the word of the LORD: “Your brothers who hate you and exclude you because of My name have said, ‘Let the LORD be glorified that we may see your joy!’ But they will be put to shame.”

¹ Jonah, however, was greatly displeased, and he became angry. ² So he prayed to the LORD, saying, “O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster. ³ And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” ⁴ But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”

⁹ Then God asked Jonah, “Have you any right to be angry about the plant?” “I do,” he replied. “I am angry enough to die!”

¹¹ On receiving their pay, they began to grumble against the landowner.

³⁴ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

² So the Pharisees and scribes began to grumble: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

⁴⁷ and in His name repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.

⁴⁵ But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, and they blasphemously contradicted what Paul was saying.

⁵⁰ The Jews, however, incited the religious women of prominence and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of their district.

² But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.

¹⁹ Then some Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and won over the crowds. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, presuming he was dead.

²¹ Then He said to me, ‘Go! I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’” ²² The crowd listened to Paul until he made this statement. Then they lifted up their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He is not fit to live!”

¹⁹ I ask instead, did Israel not understand? First, Moses says: “I will make you jealous by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation without understanding.”

²⁰ Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ: Be reconciled to God.

¹⁶ hindering us from telling the Gentiles how they may be saved. As a result, they continue to heap up their sins to full capacity; the utmost wrath has come upon them.

¹³ When Samuel reached him, Saul said to him, “May the LORD bless you. I have carried out the LORD’s instructions.” ¹⁴ But Samuel replied, “Then what is this bleating of sheep and lowing of cattle that I hear?”

² For day after day they seek Me and delight to know My ways, like a nation that does what is right and does not forsake the justice of their God. They ask Me for righteous judgments; they delight in the nearness of God.” ³ “Why have we fasted, and You have not seen? Why have we humbled ourselves, and You have not noticed?” “Behold, on the day of your fast, you do as you please, and you oppress all your workers.

³ by asking the priests of the house of the LORD of Hosts, as well as the prophets, “Should I weep and fast in the fifth month, as I have done these many years?”

¹² “But you profane it when you say, ‘The table of the Lord is defiled, and as for its fruit, its food is contemptible.’ ¹³ You also say: ‘Oh, what a nuisance!’ And you turn up your nose at it,” says the LORD of Hosts. “You bring offerings that are stolen, lame, or sick! Should I accept these from your hands?” asks the LORD.

¹⁴ You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What have we gained by keeping His requirements and walking mournfully before the LORD of Hosts?

¹² ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’

¹⁰ So you also, when you have done everything commanded of you, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

⁹ To some who trusted in their own righteousness and viewed others with contempt, He also told this parable:

¹¹ The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like the other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all that I acquire.’

²⁰ You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother.’” ²¹ “All these I have kept from my youth,” he said.

²¹ For I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man. You withdraw what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow.’

²⁰ Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin.

²⁷ Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of works? No, but on that of faith.

³ Because they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

⁴ though I myself could have such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness in the law, faultless.

¹⁷ You say, ‘I am rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

⁷ Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.

¹¹ But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God, saying, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?

¹² The younger son said to him, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. ¹³ After a few days, the younger son got everything together and journeyed to a distant country, where he squandered his wealth in wild living.

²² But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate.

¹¹ The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like the other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.

¹³ But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Did you not agree with me on one denarius? ¹⁴ Take your pay and go. I want to give this last man the same as I gave you. ¹⁵ Do I not have the right to do as I please with what is mine? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁶ So the last will be first, and the first will be last. For many are called, but few are chosen.”

²⁷ “First let the children have their fill,” Jesus said. “For it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” ²⁸ “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “for even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

²² His master replied, ‘You wicked servant, I will judge you by your own words. So you knew that I am a harsh man, withdrawing what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? ²³ Why then did you not deposit my money in the bank, and upon my return I could have collected it with interest?’

⁴ the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory and the covenants; theirs the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises.

¹ I ask then, did God reject His people? Certainly not! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

³⁵ “Who has first given to God, that God should repay him?”

⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones You have crushed rejoice.

⁹ Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them. For the ways of the LORD are right, and the righteous walk in them but the rebellious stumble in them.

¹⁰ But the LORD said, “You cared about the plant, which you neither tended nor made grow. It sprang up in a night and perished in a night. ¹¹ So should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well?”

⁴ Certainly not! Let God be true and every man a liar. As it is written: “So that You may be proved right when You speak and victorious when You judge.”

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

⁹ so that the Gentiles may glorify God for His mercy. As it is written: “Therefore I will praise You among the Gentiles; I will sing hymns to Your name.” ¹⁰ Again, it says: “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people.” ¹¹ And again: “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and extol Him, all you peoples.” ¹² And once more, Isaiah says: “The Root of Jesse will appear, One who will arise to rule over the Gentiles; in Him the Gentiles will put their hope.” ¹³ Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

¹ And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, ² in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath. ⁴ But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, demonstrated by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.