But they all alike proceeded to decline. The first said to him, 'I have bought a farm and I am obliged to go and look at it. Pray consider me excused.'

Take heed to yourselves in case your hearts get overpowered by dissipation and drunkenness and worldly anxieties, and so that Day catches you suddenly like a trap.

Never be anxious, but always make your requests known to God in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving;

for Demas, in his love for this world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens is off to Gaul, Titus to Dalmatia,

And the lusts

nerve you to spend the rest of your time in the flesh for the will of God and no longer for human passions.

Love not the world, nor yet what is in the world; if anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.

Unfruitful

The axe is lying all ready at the root of the trees; any tree that is not producing good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

he cuts away any branch on me which is not bearing fruit, and cleans every branch which does bear fruit, to make it bear richer fruit.

For land which absorbs the rain that often falls on it, and bears plants that are useful to those for whom it is tilled, receives a blessing from God;

For as these qualities exist and increase with you, they render you active and fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;

These people are stains on your love-feasts; they have no qualms about carousing in your midst, they look after none but themselves ??rainless clouds, swept along by the wind, trees in autumn without fruit, doubly dead and so uprooted,

General references

Some other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.

some other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked it, so it bore no crop;