for sleepers sleep by night and drunkards are drunk by night,

but we must be sober, we who belong to the day, clad in faith and love as our coat of mail, with the hope of salvation as our helmet ??9 for God destined us not for Wrath but to gain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

not to let your minds get easily unsettled or excited by any spirit of prophecy or any declaration or any letter purporting to come from me, to the effect that the Day of the Lord is already here.

Let nobody delude you into this belief, whatever he may say. It will not come till the Rebellion takes place first of all, with the revealing of the Lawless One, the doomed One,

Do you not remember I used to tell you this when I was with you?

and that we may be delivered from perverse and evil men ??for the faith is not held by all.

For you know quite well how to copy us; we did not loaf in your midst,

we did not take free meals from anyone; no, toiling hard at our trade, we worked night and day, so as not to be a burden to any of you.

Not that we have no right to such support; it was simply to give you a pattern to copy.

We used to charge you even when we were with you, 'If a man will not work, he shall not eat.'

Only, if anyone will not obey our orders in this letter, mark that man, do not associate with him ??that will make him feel ashamed!

You are not to treat him as an enemy, but to put him under discipline, as a brother.

and I was appointed to be its herald and apostle (I am not telling a lie, it is quite true), to teach the Gentiles faith and truth.

Women in turn are to dress modestly and quietly in seemly garb; they are not to adorn themselves with plaits of hair, with gold or pearls or expensive finery,

and Adam was not deceived, it was Eve who was deceived and who fell into sin.

not a drunkard or violent, but lenient and conciliatory, not a lover of money,

(if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how is he to look after the church of God?);

he must not be a new convert, in case he gets conceited and incurs the doom passed on the devil;

Deacons in turn are to be serious men; they are not to be tale-bearers or addicted to drink or pilfering;

Their wives must be serious too; they must not be slanderers but temperate and absolutely trustworthy.

And who does not admit how profound is the divine truth of our religion? ??it is He who was "manifest in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by the angels, preached among the nations, believed on throughout the world, taken up to glory."

You have a gift that came to you transmitted by the prophets, when the presbytery laid their hands upon you; do not neglect that gift.

Attend to these duties, let them absorb you, so that all men may note your progress.

Widows who really need it must be supported from the funds.

The really forlorn widow has her hope fixed on God, night and day she is at her prayers and supplications;

Whoever does not provide for his own relatives and particularly for his own family, has repudiated the faith: he is worse than an infidel.

Besides, they become idle unconsciously by gadding about from one house to another ??and not merely idle but gossips and busybodies, repeating things they have no right to mention.

So I prefer young widows to marry again, to bear children, to look after their households, and not to afford our opponents any chance of reviling us.

As it is, some widows have already turned after Satan. ??16 Any believer, man or woman, who has widowed relatives, must give them relief; the church is not to be burdened with them; she has to relieve the widows who really need relief.

Scripture says, You must not muzzle an ox when he is treading the grain, and A workman deserves his wages.

Never be in a hurry to ordain a presbyter; do not make yourself responsible for the sins of another man ??keep your own life pure.

Good works are equally conspicuous; and even when they are not, they cannot escape notice for ever.

Those who have Christian believers as their masters must not take liberties with them because they are brothers; they must be all the better servants because those who get the good of their service are believers and beloved. This is what you are to teach and preach.

Charge the rich of this world not to be supercilious, and not to fix their hopes on so uncertain a thing as riches but on the living God who richly provides us with all the enjoyments of life;

When I recall the tears you shed when we parted, I long by night and day to see you again. That would fill me with joy,

for God has not given us a timid spirit but a spirit of power and love and discipline.

So do not be ashamed to testify to our Lord, and do not be ashamed of a prisoner of the Lord like me; join me in bearing suffering for the gospel by the power of the God

who has saved us and called us to a life of consecration ??not for anything we have done but because he chose to do it himself, by the grace which he gave us ages ago in Christ Jesus

and this is why I am suffering. Still, I am not ashamed of it; I know whom I have trusted and I am certain he is able to keep what I have put into his hands till the great Day.

May the Lord show favour to the household of Onesiphorus, for many a time he braced me up; he was not ashamed of my imprisonment ??17 no, he made eager search for me when he reached Rome, and he found me

Again, a competitor in the games is not crowned unless he observes the rules.

Remind men of this: adjure them before the Lord not to bandy arguments ??no good comes out of that, it only means the undoing of your audience.

Do your utmost to let God see that you at least are a sound workman, with no need to be ashamed of the way you handle the word of the Truth.

In any great house there are indeed vessels not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for noble, some for menial service.

And the Lord's servant must not be a man of strife; he must be kind to everybody, a skilled teacher, a man who will not resent injuries;

Now the crown of a good life awaits me, with which the Lord, that just Judge, will reward me on the great Day ??and not only me but all who have loved and longed for his appearance.

The first time I had to defend myself, I had no supporters; everyone deserted me. God grant it may not be brought up against them!

men who are above reproach, only once married, with children who believe and who are not liable to the charge of being profligate or insubordinate.

[For a bishop must be above reproach ??he is a steward of God's house ??he must not be presumptuous or hot-tempered or a drunkard or violent or addicted to pilfering;

Tell the older women also to be reverent in their demeanour and not to be slanderers or slaves to drink;

Tell servants to be submissive to their masters and to give them satisfaction all round, not to be refractory,

not to embezzle, but to prove themselves truly faithful at all points, so as to be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Saviour in all respects.

they must abuse no one, they must not quarrel, but be conciliatory and display perfect gentleness to all men.

and he saved us, not for anything we had done but from his own pity for us, by the water that means regeneration and renewal under the holy Spirit

Our people must really learn to profess honest occupations, so as to be able to meet such special occasions; they must not be idle.

but I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that your goodness to me might come of your own free will, without any appearance of constraint.

This is in my own handwriting: 'I Paul promise to refund it' ??not to mention that you owe me, over and above, your very soul.

Are not all angels merely spirits in the divine service, commissioned for the benefit of those who are to inherit salvation?

For the world to come, of which I am speaking, was not put under the control of angels.

putting all things under his feet. Now by putting all things under him, the writer meant to leave nothing out of his control. But, as it is, we do not yet see all things controlled by man;

For sanctifier and sanctified have all one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,

(For of course it is not angels that he succours, it is the offspring of Abraham.)

harden not your hearts as at the Provocation, on the day of the Temptation in the desert,

Therefore I grew exasperated with that generation, I said, 'They are always astray in their heart': They would not learn my ways;

this word ever sounding in our ears, To-day, when you hear his voice, harden not your hearts as at the Provocation.

Who heard and yet provoked him? Was it not all who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses?

And with whom was he exasperated for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the desert?

Thus we see it was owing to unbelief that they could not enter.

For we have had the good news as well as they; only, the message they heard was of no use to them, because it did not meet with faith in the hearers.

he again fixes a day; To-day ??as he says in 'David' after so long an interval, and as has been already quoted ??To-day, when you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Thus if Joshua had given them Rest, God would not speak later about another day.

So let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in the hour of need.

Similarly Christ was not raised to the glory of the high priesthood by himself but by Him who declared to him, Thou art my son, to-day have I become thy father.

Though by this time you should be teaching other people, you still need someone to teach you once more the rudimentary principles of the divine revelation. You are in need of milk, not of solid food.

God is not unfair; he will not forget what you have done, or the love you have shown for his sake in ministering, as you still do, to the saints.

one who has become a priest by the power of an indissoluble Life and not by the law of an external command;

A better Hope, because it was not promised apart from an oath.

Previous priests became priests apart from any oath, but he has an oath from Him who said to him, The Lord has sworn, and he will not change his mind, thou art a priest for ever.

one who has no need, like yonder high priests, day by day to offer sacrifices first for their own sins and then for those of the People ??he did that once for all in offering up himself.

and who officiates in the sanctuary or true tabernacle set up by the Lord and not by man.

Were he on earth, he would not be a priest at all, for there are priests already to offer the gifts prescribed by Law

Whereas God does find fault with the people of that covenant, when he says: The day is coming, saith the Lord, when I will conclude a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be on the lines of the covenant I made with their fathers,

on the day I took them by the hand to lead out of Egypt's land; for they would not hold to my covenant, so I let them alone, saith the Lord.

but the second tent is entered only once a year by the high priest alone ??and it must not be without blood, which he presents on behalf of himself and the errors of the People.

By this the holy Spirit means that the way into the Holiest Presence was not disclosed so long as the first tent

not taking any blood of goats and oxen but his own blood, and entered once for all into the Holy place. He secured an eternal redemption.

Hence even the first covenant of God's will was not inaugurated apart from blood;

For Christ has not entered a holy place which human hands have made (a mere type of the reality!); he has entered heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, like the high priest entering the holy place every year with blood that was not his own: ??26 for in that case he would have had to suffer repeatedly, ever since the world was founded. Nay, once for all, at the end of the world, he has appeared with his self-sacrifice to abolish sin.

so Christ, after being once sacrificed to bear the sins of many, will appear again, not to deal with sin but for the saving of those who look out for him.

and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good deeds ??25 not ceasing to meet together, as is the habit of some, but admonishing one another, all the more so, as you see the Day coming near.

Now do not drop that confidence of yours; it carries with it a rich hope of reward.

Steady patience is what you need, so that after doing the will of God you may get what you have been promised.

We are not the men to shrink back and be lost, but to have faith and so to win our souls.

Now faith means we are confident of what we hope for, convinced of what we do not see.

It was by faith that Enoch was taken to heaven, so that he never died (he was not overtaken by death, for God had taken him away). For before he was taken to heaven, his record was that he had satisfied God;

It was by faith that Abraham obeyed his call to go forth to a place which he would receive as an inheritance; he went forth, although he did not know where he was to go.

but they really aspire to the better land in heaven. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God; he has prepared a City for them.)

It was by faith that he left Egypt, not from any fear of the king's wrath; like one who saw the King Invisible, he never flinched.

It was by faith that he celebrated the passover and performed the sprinkling by blood, so that the destroying angel might not touch Israel's first-born.