So shun the lusts of youth and aim at integrity, faith, love and peace, in the company of those who invoke the Lord out of a pure heart.

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;

Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus salutes you; so do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brotherhood.

Paul a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and for their knowledge of the Truth that goes with a religious life,

[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;

he must hold by the sure truths of doctrine so as to be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and refute objections raised by any.]

That is a true statement. So deal sharply with them, to have them sound in the faith

they must give good counsel, so that the young women may be trained to love their husbands and children,

let your words be sound and such that no exception can be taken to them, so that the opposite side may be confounded by finding nothing that they can say to our discredit.

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.

Give a hearty send-off to Zenas the jurist and Apollos; see that they want for nothing.

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.

So do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow-workers.

He, reflecting God's bright glory and stamped with God's own character, sustains the universe with his word of power; when he had secured our purification from sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high;

For to what angel did God ever say, 'Thou art my son, to-day have I become thy father'? Or again, 'I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me'?

And further, when introducing the Firstborn into the world, he says, 'Let all God's angels worship him.'

To what angel did he ever say, 'Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies a footstool for your feet'?

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;

what we do see is Jesus who was put lower than the angels for a little while to suffer death, and who has been crowned with glory and honour that by God's grace he might taste death for everyone.

Since the children then share blood and flesh, he himself participated in their nature, so that by dying he might crush him who wields the power of death (that is to say, the devil)

he is faithful to Him who appointed him. For while Moses also was faithful in every department of God's house,

Besides, while Moses was faithful in every department of God's house as an attendant ??by way of witness to the coming revelation ??6 Christ is faithful as a Son over God's house. Now we are this house of God, if we will only keep confident and proud of our hope.

so I swore in my anger, 'they shall never enter my Rest.'

Rather admonish one another daily, so long as this word To-day is uttered, that none of you may be deceived by sin and hardened.

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

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.

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.

On this point I have a great deal to say, which it is hard to make intelligible to you. For you have grown dull of hearing.

With God's permission, we will take this step.

who tasted the goodness of God's word and the powers of the world to come, and then fell away ??6 it is impossible to make them repent afresh, since they crucify the Son of God in their own persons and hold him up to obloquy.

Though I say this, beloved, I feel sure you will take the better course that means salvation.

It is my heart's desire that each of you would prove equally keen upon realizing your full hope to the very end,

so that instead of being slack you may imitate those who inherit the promises by their stedfast faith.

so that by these two solid facts (the Promise and the Oath), where it is impossible for God to be false, we refugees might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us,

In fact, we might almost say that even Levi the receiver of tithes paid tithes through Abraham;

(men who serve a mere outline and shadow of the heavenly ??as Moses was instructed, when he was about to execute the building of the tabernacle: see, God said, that you make everything on the pattern shown you upon the mountain).

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.

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

But when Christ arrived as the high priest of the bliss that was to be, he passed through the greater and more perfect tent which no hands had made (no part, that is to say, of the present order),

A will only holds in cases of death; it is never valid so long as the testator is alive.

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

and saying, This is the blood of that covenant which is God's command for you.

In fact, one might almost say that by Law everything is cleansed with blood. No blood shed, no remission of sins!

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.

So I said, 'Here I come ??in the roll of the book this is written of me ??I come to do thy will, O God.'

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.

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;

(These all died in faith without obtaining the promises; they only saw them far away and hailed them, owning they were 'strangers and exiles upon earth.'

It was by faith that Moses was hidden for three months after birth by his parents, because they saw the child was beautiful, and had no fear of the royal decree.

It was by faith that Moses refused, when he had grown up, to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter;

ill-treatment with God's people he preferred to the passing pleasures of sin,

considering obloquy with the messiah to be richer wealth than all Egypt's treasures ??for he had an eye to the Reward.

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.

It was by faith that they crossed the Red Sea like dry land ??and when the Egyptians attempted it they were drowned.

And what more shall I say? Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, of Barak and Samson and Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets ??33 men who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouth of lions,

Compare him who steadily endured all that hostility from sinful men, so as to keep your own hearts from fainting and failing.

And have you forgotten the word of appeal that reasons with you as sons? ??My son, never make light of the Lord's discipline, never faint under his reproofs;

Why, we had fathers of our flesh to discipline us, and we yielded to them! Shall we not far more submit to the Father of our spirits, and so live?

So up with your listless hands! Strengthen your weak knees!

Aim at peace with all ??and at that consecration without which no one will ever see the Lord;

see to it that no one misses the grace of God, that no root of bitterness grows up to be a trouble by contaminating all the rest of you;

(for they could not bear the command, If even a beast touches the mountain, it must be stoned) ??21 indeed, so awful was the sight that Moses said, I am terrified and aghast.

to Jesus who mediates the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood whose message is nobler than Abel's.

See that you do not refuse to listen to His voice. For if they failed to escape, who refused to listen to their instructor upon earth, much less shall we escape, if we discard Him who speaks from heaven.

So that we can say confidently, The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can men do to me?

Never let yourselves be carried away with a variety of novel doctrines; for the right thing is to have one's heart strengthened by grace, not by the eating of food ??that has never been any use to those who have had recourse to it.

and so Jesus also suffered outside the gate, in order to sanctify the people by his own blood.

You must understand that [our] brother Timotheus is now free. If he comes soon, he and I will see you together.

only, let your endurance be a finished product, so that you may be finished and complete, with never a defect.

Only, let him ask in faith, with never a doubt; for the doubtful man is like surge of the sea whirled and swayed by the wind;

but let one who is rich exult in being lowered; for the rich will pass away like the flower of the grass ??11 up comes the sun with the scorching wind and withers the grass, its flower drops off, and the splendour of it is ruined: so shall the rich fade away amid their pursuits.

Let no one who is tried by temptation say, 'My temptation comes from God'; God is incapable of being tempted by evil and he tempts no one.

so clear away all the foul rank growth of malice, and make a soil of modesty for the Word which roots itself inwardly with power to save your souls.

if you attend to the wearer of the handsome clothes and say to him, "Sit here, this is a good place," and tell the poor man, "You can stand," or "Sit there at my feet,"

So faith, unless it has deeds, is dead in itself.

You believe in one God? Well and good. So do the devils, and they shudder.

In his case, you see, faith co-operated with deeds, faith was completed by deeds,

and the scripture was fulfilled: Abraham believed God, and this was counted to him as righteousness ??he was called God's friend.

So too with Rahab the harlot. Was she not justified by what she did, when she entertained the scouts and got them away by a different road?

For as the body without the breath of life is dead, so faith is dead without deeds.

We put bridles into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, and so, you see, we can move the whole of their bodies.

So the tongue is a small member of the body, but it can boast of great exploits. What a forest is set ablaze by a little spark of fire!

With the tongue we bless the Lord and Father, and with the tongue we curse men made in God's likeness;

and the peacemakers who sow in peace reap righteousness.

(Wanton creatures! do you not know that the world's friendship means enmity to God? Whoever, then, chooses to be the world's friend, turns enemy to God.

Come now, you who say, "To-day or to-morrow we are going to such and such a city; we shall spend a year there trading and making money" ??14 you who know nothing about to-morrow! For what is your life? You are but a mist, which appears for a little and then vanishes.

You ought rather to say, "If the Lord will, we shall live to do this or that."

See, the wages of which you have defrauded the workmen who mowed your fields call out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

Be patient, then, brothers, till the arrival of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious crop of the land, biding his time patiently till he gets the autumn and the spring rains;

See, we call the stedfast happy; you have heard of the stedfastness of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord with him, seen that the Lord is very compassionate and pitiful.

So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed; the prayers of the righteous have a powerful effect.

You never knew him, but you love him; for the moment you do not see him, but you believe in him, and you will thrill with an unspeakable and glorious joy

as He who called you is holy, so you must be holy too in all your conduct ??16 for it is written, You shall be holy because I am holy.

So off with all malice, all guile and insincerity and envy and slander of every kind!

a stone over which men stumble and a rock of offence; they stumble over it in their disobedience to God's word. Such is their appointed doom.