they only heard people say, "The man who once persecuted us is now preaching the good news of the faith he tried to destroy,"

and they praised God for me.

But they did not insist that even my companion Titus, although he was a Greek, should be circumcised,

Those who were regarded as the leaders??hat they once were makes no difference to me; God takes no account of external differences??he leaders contributed nothing new to me.

On the contrary, when they saw that I had been intrusted with the good news for the heathen, just as Peter had been intrusted with it for the Jews??8 for he who actuated Peter to be an apostle to the Jews also actuated me to be one to the heathen??9 and when they recognized the favor God had shown me, James, Cephas, and John, who were regarded as pillars of the church, pledged Barnabas and me their co-operation, with the understanding that we should work among the heathen and they among the Jews.

For until some people came from James, he used to eat with the heathen, but after they came, he began to draw back and hold aloof, for fear of the party of circumcision.

But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the good news, I said to Cephas, right before them all, "If you live like a heathen, and not like a Jew, though you are a Jew yourself, why should you try to make the heathen live like Jews?"

These men are making much of you, but not with honorable intentions. They want to shut you out, so that you will have to make much of them.

Why, even those who let themselves be circumcised do not observe the Law themselves! But they want you to let yourselves be circumcised so that they can boast of that physical fact about you!

They are estranged from the life of God because of the ignorance that exists among them and their obstinacy of heart,

for they have become callous, and abandoned themselves to sensuality, greedily practicing every kind of vice.

No bad word must ever pass your lips, but only words that are good and suited to improve the occasion, so that they will be a blessing to those who hear them.

That is the way husbands ought to love their wives??s if they were their own bodies; a man who loves his wife is really loving himself,

Therefore a man must leave his father and mother and attach himself to his wife, and they must become one.

These latter do it from love for me, for they know that God has put me where I am to defend our right to preach the good news.

But the others are preaching the Christ not sincerely but for their own ends, imagining that they are making my imprisonment harder to bear.

For they are all looking out for their own interests, not for those of Jesus Christ.

They are doomed to destruction: their appetites are their god; they glory in their shame; they are absorbed in earthly matters.

And I beg you, my true comrade, help them, for they toiled at my side in spreading the good news, with Clement and the rest of my fellow-workers, whose names are in the book of life.

Such practices pass for wisdom, with their self-imposed devotions, their self-humiliation, and their ascetic discipline, but they carry with them no real distinction, they are really only a catering to the flesh.

Fathers, do not irritate your children, or they may lose heart.

And with him I send my dear, faithful brother Onesimus, who is one of your own number. They will tell you all about matters here.

So also does Jesus who is called Justus. They are the only ones among the converts from Judaism who have worked with me for the reign of God who have proved a comfort to me.

For when people speak of us, they tell what a welcome you gave us, and how you turned from idols to God, to serve a true and living God,

For you, brothers, followed the example of God's churches in Judea that are in union with Christ Jesus, for you in your turn had to bear the same ill-treatment from your neighbors as they did from the Jews,

try to keep us from speaking to the heathen so that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God's wrath has overtaken them at last!

Hold them in the highest esteem and affection for what they do. Live at peace with one another.

They will be punished with eternal ruin and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and his glorious might,

and full of wicked deception for men who are going to destruction, because they refused to love the truth and be saved.

They would like to be teachers of law although they do not understand the words they use or the matters they insist upon.

These are the instructions that I intrust to you, my son Timothy, and they are in accordance with the predictions made long ago about you. Fight the good fight with their aid,

I do not allow women to teach or to domineer over men; they must keep quiet.

But they will be saved through motherhood, if they continue to have faith and to be loving and holy, and sensible as well.

They should first be tested, and afterward, if there is no fault to be found with them, they can serve as assistants.

Their wives too must be serious, not gossips; they must be temperate, and perfectly trustworthy.

Do not put young women on the list of widows, for when their youthful vigor comes between them and Christ, they want to marry,

Besides, as they go about from house to house they learn to be idle, and not only idle but gossips and busybodies, and talk of things they ought not to mention.

Elders who do their duties well should be considered as deserving twice as much as they get, particularly those who work at preaching and teaching.

Good deeds too are evident enough, or when they are not, they cannot be wholly concealed.

Those who have Christian masters must not think lightly of them because they are brothers; they must serve them all the more faithfully, because those who benefit by it are believers and hence dear to them. These are the things you must teach and preach.

Timothy, guard what has been intrusted to you. Keep away from the worldly, empty phrases and contradictions of what they falsely call knowledge,

For that reason I am ready to submit to anything for the sake of those whom God has chosen, so that they too may gain the salvation that comes through Christ Jesus and brings eternal glory.

Leave worldly, empty phrases alone, for they lead people deeper and deeper into godlessness,

Avoid foolish, crude speculations; you know they only lead to quarrels,

and they may yet return to their senses and escape from the toils of the devil, who has caught them to make them do his will.

They are the kind of men who make their way into people's houses and make captives of poor, weak women, loaded down with their sins and under the control of all sorts of impulses,

Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, these people in turn oppose the truth; they are men of depraved minds and counterfeit faith.

But they will not make much progress, for everyone will perceive their folly, just as they did that of those others.

For a time will come when they will not listen to wholesome instruction, but will overwhelm themselves with teachers to suit their whims and tickle their fancies,

and they will turn from listening to the truth and wander off after fictions.

They must be silenced, for such men upset whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach, for the sake of dishonest gain.

They profess to know God, but they disown him by what they do; they are detestable, disobedient men, worthless for any good purpose.

or steal from them, but to show such perfect good faith as to do credit to the teaching about God our Savior, by everything they do.

But have nothing to do with foolish controversies, pedigrees, strife, and wrangles about the Law, for they are profitless and futile.

Do all you can to help Zenas the expert in the Law and Apollos on with their journey, and see that they have everything they need.

and I pray that through coming to know every good thing about us as Christians they may effectually share your faith.

They will perish, but you continue! And they will all wear out like a coat,

For both he who purifies them and they who are purified spring from one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,

Where your forefathers put my doings to the proof for forty years, Though they saw them all the time.

That was why I was angry with that generation, And I said, 'Their minds are always wandering, And they have never found my paths.'

But as I made oath in my anger, They shall never be admitted to my Rest!"

So while we can still speak of Today, if you hear him speak, do not harden your hearts, as they provoked him by doing.

And who was it to whom God made oath that they should not be admitted to his Rest, if it was not to those who had disobeyed him?

For we have had good news preached to us, just as they did, but the message they heard did them no good because they did not agree through faith with what they heard.

For we who have believed are admitted to that Rest, of which he said, "As I made oath in my anger, They shall never be admitted to my Rest!" And yet God's work was finished at the creation of the world,

while here he says again, "They shall never be admitted to my Rest!"

For it is impossible to arouse people to a fresh repentance when they have once for all come into the light and had a taste of the gift from heaven, and shared in the holy Spirit

and yet have fallen back, for they crucify the Son of God on their own account, and hold him up to contempt.

For men make oath by something greater than themselves, and they accept an oath as settling finally any disagreement they may have.

Those of the descendants of Levi who are appointed to the priesthood are directed by the Law to collect tithes from the people, that is, from their own brothers, although they are descended from Abraham like themselves.

Further, if he were still on earth, he would not be a priest at all, for there are priests enough provided to offer the gifts the Law prescribes??5 though the service they engage in is only a shadow and imitation of that in heaven. For when Moses was going to make the tent of worship he was warned, "Be sure to make it all just like the pattern you were shown on the mountain."

Not like the one that I made with their forefathers, On the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out from the land of Egypt, For they would not abide by their agreement with me, So I paid no attention to them,' says the Lord.

'For this is the agreement that I will make with the house of Israel, In those later days,' says the Lord; 'I will put my laws into their minds, And write them on their hearts, And they will have me for their God, And I will have them for my people.

And they will not have to teach their townsmen and their brothers to know the Lord, For they will all know me, From the lowest to the highest.

since they have to do only with food and drink and various washings??aterial regulations in force only until the time for the new order.

And this is why he is the negotiator of a new agreement, in order that as someone has died to deliver them from the offenses committed under the old agreement, those who have been offered it may receive the unending inheritance they have been promised.

Otherwise, would they not have ceased to offer these sacrifices, because those who offered them, having once been purified, would have had no further consciousness of sin?

They really only serve to remind the people annually of the sins they have committed,

Every other priest stands officiating day after day, offering over and over again the same sacrifices, though they were powerless ever to remove people's sins.

All these people lived all their lives in faith, and died without receiving what had been promised; they only saw it far ahead and welcomed the sight of it, recognizing that they themselves were only foreigners and strangers here on earth.

For men who recognize that show that they are in search of a country of their own.

And if it had been the country from which they had come to which their thoughts turned back, they would have found an opportunity to return to it.

Faith led Moses' parents to hide him for three months after his birth, because they saw that he was a beautiful child and they would not respect the edict of the king.

Faith enabled them to cross the Red Sea as though it were dry land, although the Egyptians when they tried to follow them across it were drowned.

Faith made the walls of Jericho fall, after they had marched around them each day for seven days.

Women had their dead restored to them by resurrection. Others endured torture, and refused to accept release, that they might rise again to the better life.

They were stoned to death, they were tortured to death, they were sawed in two, they were killed with the sword. Clothed in the skins of sheep or goats, they were driven from place to place, destitute, persecuted, misused??38 men of whom the world was not worthy wandering in deserts, mountains, caves, and holes in the ground.

Yet though they all gained God's approval by their faith, they none of them received what he had promised,

for God had resolved upon something still better for us, that they might not reach the fulfilment of their hopes except with us.

For they disciplined us for a short time and as they thought proper, but he does it for our good, to make us share his holiness.

for they could not bear the order, "Even a wild animal, if it touches the mountain, must be stoned to death,"

Take care not to refuse to listen to him who is speaking. For if they could not escape because they would not listen to him who warned them here on earth, how much less can we, who reject him who is from heaven!

Do not forget your former leaders, the men who brought you God's message. Remember how they ended their lives and imitate their faith.

Obey your leaders and give way to them, for they are keeping watch in defense of your souls, as men accountable for the trust. Make their work a joy and not a grief, for that would be the worse for you.

But you humiliate the poor. Are not the rich your oppressors? Is it not they who drag you into court?

Is it not they who slander the noble name you bear?

Do you believe in one God? Very well! So do the demons, and they shudder.

Even ships, great as they are, and driven by strong winds, are steered with a very small rudder wherever the pilot pleases.

they are to show that your faith when tested is found to be more precious than gold, which though it is perishable is tested with fire, and they will bring you praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

It was disclosed to them that they were serving not themselves but you in dealing with these things, which have now been told you by those who through the holy Spirit sent from heaven brought you the good news; things into which angels long to look!