Bible verses about "ethics" | Williams

³⁴ I give you a new command, to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you too must love one another. ³⁵ By this everybody will know that you are my disciples, if you keep on showing love for one another."

³⁸ Peter said to them, "You must repent -- and, as an expression of it, let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ -- that you may have your sins forgiven; and then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,

¹ Therefore, you have no excuse, whoever you are, who pose as a judge of others, for when you pass judgment on another, you condemn yourself, for you who pose as a judge are practicing the very same sins yourself.

¹² Blessed is the person who endures trial, for when he stands the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him. ¹³ No one must say, when he is tempted to do evil, "I have a temptation from God to do evil," for God cannot be tempted to do evil, and He never tempts anyone to do so. ¹⁴ But anyone is tempted to do evil when he is allured by his own evil desire and enticed by a bait. ¹⁵ Then evil desire conceives and gives birth to sin, and when sin is completed, it brings forth death.

¹ What is our conclusion then? Are we to continue to sin for His unmerited favor to multiply? ² Not at all! Since we have ended our relation to sin, how can we live in it any longer? ³ Or, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into union with Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? ⁴ So through baptism we have been buried with Him in death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father's glorious power, so we too should live an entirely new life. ⁵ For if we have grown into fellowship with Him by sharing a death like His, surely we shall share a resurrection life like His, ⁶ for we know that our former self was crucified with Him, to make our body that is liable to sin inactive, so that we might not a moment longer continue to be slaves to sin. ⁷ For when a man is dead, he is freed from the claims of sin. ⁸ So if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹ for we know that Christ, who once was raised from the dead, will never die again; death has no more power over Him. ¹⁰ For by the death He died He once for all ended His relation to sin, and by the life He now is living He lives in unbroken relation to God. ¹¹ So you too must consider yourselves as having ended your relation to sin but living in unbroken relation to God. ¹² Accordingly, sin must not continue to reign over your mortal bodies, so as to make you continue to obey their evil desires, ¹³ and you must stop offering to sin the parts of your bodies as instruments for wrongdoing, but you must once for all offer yourselves to God as persons raised from the dead to live on perpetually, and once for all offer the parts of your bodies to God as instruments for right-doing. ¹⁴ For sin must not any longer exert its mastery over you, for now you are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor. ¹⁵ What are we to conclude? Are we to keep on sinning, because we are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor? Never! ¹⁶ Do you not know that when you habitually offer yourselves to anyone for obedience to him, you are slaves to that one whom you are in the habit of obeying, whether it is the slavery to sin whose end is death or to obedience whose end is right-doing? ¹⁷ But, thank God, that though you once were slaves of sin, you became obedient from your hearts to that form of teaching in which you have been instructed, ¹⁸ and since you have been freed from sin, you have become the slaves of right-doing. ¹⁹ I am speaking in familiar human terms because of the frailty of your nature. For just as you formerly offered the parts of your bodies in slavery to impurity and to ever increasing lawlessness, so now you must once for all offer them in slavery to right-doing, which leads to consecration. ²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free so far as doing right was concerned. ²¹ What benefit did you then derive from doing the things of which you are now ashamed? None, for they end in death. ²² But now, since you have been freed from sin and have become the slaves of God, the immediate result is consecration, and the final destiny is eternal life. ²³ For the wages paid by sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life through union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹ If I could speak the languages of men, of angels too, and have no love, I am only a rattling pan or a clashing cymbal. ² If I should have the gift of prophecy, And know all secret truths, and knowledge in its every form, and have such perfect faith that I could move mountains, but have no love, I am nothing. ³ If I should dole out everything I have for charity, and give my body up to torture in mere boasting pride, but have no love, I get from it no good at all. ⁴ Love is so patient and so kind; love never boils with jealousy; it never boasts, is never puffed with pride; ⁵ It does not act with rudeness, or insist upon its rights; it never gets provoked, it never harbors evil thoughts; ⁶ Is never glad when wrong is done, but always glad when truth prevails; ⁷ It bears up under anything; it exercises faith in everything; it keeps up hope in everything; it gives us power to endure in anything. ⁸ Love never fails; if there are prophecies, they will be set aside; if now exist ecstatic speakings, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will soon be set aside; ⁹ For what we know is incomplete and what we prophesy is incomplete. ¹⁰ But when perfection comes, what is imperfect will be set aside. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I laid aside my childish ways. ¹² For now we see a dim reflection in a looking-glass. But then we shall see face to face; Now what I know is imperfect, but then I shall know perfectly, as God knows me. ¹³ And so these three, faith, hope, and love endure, but the greatest of them is love.

⁸ Stop owing anybody anything, except the obligation to love one another, for whoever practices loving others has perfectly satisfied the law. ⁹ For the commandments, "You must not commit adultery; you must not murder; you must not steal; you must not have an evil desire," and any other commandment if there is any, are summed up in this command, "You must love your neighbor as you do yourself." ¹⁰ Love never does a wrong to one's neighbor; so love is the perfect satisfaction of the law.

¹⁶ All Scripture is inspired by God, and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in doing what is right, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be perfectly fit, thoroughly equipped for every good enterprise.

⁹ Do you not know that wrongdoers will not have a share in the kingdom of God? Stop being misled; people who are sexually immoral or idolaters or adulterers or sensual or guilty of unnatural sexual vice ¹⁰ or thieves or greedy graspers for more or drunkards or slanderers or swindlers will not have a share in the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And these are just the characters some of you used to be. But now you have washed yourselves clean, you have been consecrated, you are now in right standing with God, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.