not in the way of eye-service [working only when someone is watching you and only] to please men, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart;

For this is the will of God, that you be sanctified [separated and set apart from sin]: that you abstain and back away from sexual immorality;

in every situation [no matter what the circumstances] be thankful and continually give thanks to God; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.

With

Keep your behavior excellent among the [unsaved] Gentiles [conduct yourself honorably, with graciousness and integrity], so that for whatever reason they may slander you as evildoers, yet by observing your good deeds they may [instead come to] glorify God in the day of visitation [when He looks upon them with mercy].

“So the helpless have hope,
And injustice shuts its mouth.

The upright see it and rejoice;
But all unrighteousness shuts its mouth.

sound and beyond reproach in instruction, so that the opponent [of the faith] will be shamed, having nothing bad to say about us.

The ignorance

even though I was formerly a blasphemer [of our Lord] and a persecutor [of His church] and a shameful and outrageous and violent aggressor [toward believers]. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted out of ignorance in unbelief.

But these [false teachers], like unreasoning animals, [mere] creatures of instinct, born to be captured and destroyed, reviling things they do not understand, will also perish in their own corruption [in their destroying they will be destroyed],

But these men sneer at anything which they do not understand; and whatever they do know by [mere] instinct, like unreasoning and irrational beasts—by these things they are destroyed.

Foolish

“Do you thus repay the Lord,
O foolish and unwise people?
Is not He your Father who has acquired you [as His own]?
He has made you and established you [as a nation].

But he said to her, “You speak as one of the [spiritually] foolish women speaks [ignorant and oblivious to God’s will]. Shall we indeed accept [only] good from God and not [also] accept adversity and disaster?” In [spite of] all this Job did not sin with [words from] his lips.

The boastful and the arrogant will not stand in Your sight;
You hate all who do evil.

“Leave [behind] your foolishness [and the foolish] and live,
And walk in the way of insight and understanding.”

“For My people are stupid and foolish,” [says the Lord to Jeremiah];
“They do not know Me;
They are foolish children
And have no understanding.
They are shrewd [enough] to do evil,
But they do not know [how] to do good.”

And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them, will be like a foolish (stupid) man who built his house on the sand.

Five of them were foolish [thoughtless, silly, and careless], and five were wise [far-sighted, practical, and sensible].

For even though they knew God [as the Creator], they did not honor Him as God or give thanks [for His wondrous creation]. On the contrary, they became worthless in their thinking [godless, with pointless reasonings, and silly speculations], and their foolish heart was darkened.

O you foolish and thoughtless and superficial Galatians, who has bewitched you [that you would act like this], to whom—right before your very eyes—Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified [in the gospel message]?

For we too once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various sinful desires and pleasures, spending and wasting our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

General references

Jacob answered him, “You know how I have served you and how your possessions, your cattle and sheep and goats, have fared with me.

They answered Joshua, saying, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.