Brotherly Love

¹Continue in brotherly love.

²Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

³Remember those in prison as if you were bound with them, and those who are mistreated as if you were suffering with them.

⁴Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

Christ’s Unchanging Nature

⁵Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for God has said:“Never will I leave you,never will I forsake you.”

⁶So we say with confidence:“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.What can man do to me?”

⁷Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

⁸Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

⁹Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace and not by foods of no value to those devoted to them.

¹⁰We have an altar from which those who serve at the tabernacle have no right to eat.

¹¹Although the high priest brings the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin, the bodies are burned outside the camp.

¹²And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate, to sanctify the people by His own blood.

¹³Therefore let us go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore.

¹⁴For here we do not have a permanent city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

Sacrifice, Obedience, and Prayer

¹⁵Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name.

¹⁶And do not neglect to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

¹⁷Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch over your souls as those who must give an account. To this end, allow them to lead with joy and not with grief, for that would be of no advantage to you.

¹⁸Pray for us; we are convinced that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honorably in every way.

¹⁹And I especially urge you to pray that I may be restored to you soon.

Benediction and Farewell

²⁰Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep,

²¹equip you with every good thingto do His will. And may He accomplish in uswhat is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

²²I urge you, brothers, to bear with my word of exhortation, for I have only written to you briefly.

²³Be aware that our brother Timothy has been released. If he arrives soon, I will come with him to see you.

²⁴Greet all your leaders and all the saints.Those from Italy send you greetings.

²⁵Grace be with all of you.

Paul’s Greeting to the Ephesians

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,To the saints in Ephesus,the faithful in Christ Jesus:

²Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Blessings

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.

⁴For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love

⁵He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will,

⁶to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One.

⁷In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace

⁸that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

⁹And He has made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ

¹⁰as a plan for the fullness of time, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together in Christ.

¹¹In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will,

¹²in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, would be for the praise of His glory.

¹³And in Him, having heard and believed the word of truth—the gospel of your salvation—you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,

¹⁴who is the pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession, to the praise of His glory.

Spiritual Wisdom

¹⁵For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,

¹⁶I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,

¹⁷that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in your knowledge of Him.

¹⁸I ask that the eyes of your heartmay be enlightened, so that you may know the hope of His calling, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints,

¹⁹and the surpassing greatness of His power to us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of His mighty strength,

²⁰which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms,

²¹far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

²²And God put everything under His feet and made Him head over everything for the church,

²³which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Paul Greets the Corinthians

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:

²Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The God of All Comfort

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,

⁴who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

⁶If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which accomplishes in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we experience.

⁷And our hope for you is sure, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you will share in our comfort.

⁸We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the hardships we encountered in the province of Asia.We were under a burden far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.

⁹Indeed, we felt we were under the sentence of death, in order that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead.

¹⁰He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. In Him we have placed our hope that He will yet again deliver us,

¹¹as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the favor shown us in answer to their prayers.

Paul’s Change of Plans

¹²For this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in relation to you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God—not in worldlywisdom, but in the grace of God.

¹³For we do not write you anything that is beyond your ability to read and understand. And I hope that you will understand us completely,

¹⁴as you have already understood us in part, that you may boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of our Lord Jesus.

¹⁵Confident of this, I planned to visit you first, so that you might receive a double blessing.

¹⁶I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to return to you from Macedonia, and then to have you help me on my way to Judea.

¹⁷When I planned this, did I do it carelessly? Or do I make my plans by human standards, so as to say “Yes, yes” and also “No, no”?

¹⁸But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.”

¹⁹For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed among you by me and Silvanusand Timothy, was not “Yes” and “No,” but in Him it has always been “Yes.”

²⁰For all the promises of God are “Yes” in Christ. And so through Him, our “Amen” is spoken to the glory of God.

²¹Now it is God who establishes both us and you in Christ. He anointed us,

²²placed His seal on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a pledge of what is to come.

²³I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth.

²⁴Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are fellow workers with you for your joy, because it is by faith that you stand firm.

Be Merciful to Me, O God

¹Be merciful to me, O God,for men are hounding me;all day they press their attack.

²My enemies pursue me all day long,for many proudly assail me.

³When I am afraid,I put my trust in You.

⁴In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust.I will not be afraid.What can man do to me?

⁵All day long they twist my words;all their thoughts are on my demise.

⁶They conspire, they lurk,they watch my stepswhile they wait to take my life.

⁷In spite of such sin, will they escape?In Your anger, O God, cast down the nations.

⁸You have taken account of my wanderings.Put my tears in Your bottle—are they not in Your book?

⁹Then my enemies will retreaton the day I cry for help.By this I will know that God is on my side.

¹⁰In God, whose word I praise,in the LORD, whose word I praise,

¹¹in God I trust; I will not be afraid.What can man do to me?

¹²Your vows are upon me, O God;I will render thank offerings to You.

¹³For You have delivered my soul from death,and my feet from stumbling,that I may walk before Godin the light of life.