he said to them, "Did you receive the holy Spirit when you became believers?" "No," they said to him, "we never even heard that there was a holy Spirit."

When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,

This went on for two years, so that everyone who lived in Asia, Greeks as well as Jews, heard the Lord's message.

When they heard this, they became very angry, and cried, "Great Artemis of Ephesus!"

I showed you in every way that by hard work like that we must help those who are weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, for he said, 'It makes one happier to give than to be given to.' "

When we heard this, we and the people there all begged him not to go up to Jerusalem.

Then Paul answered, "What do you mean by crying and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound at Jerusalem but to die there for the sake of the Lord Jesus."

They praised God when they heard it, and they said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousand believers there are among the Jews, all of them zealous upholders of the Law.

When they heard him speak to them in Hebrew, they became even more quiet, and he said,

and I fell upon the ground and heard a voice say to me, 'Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?'

for you shall be his witness before all men of what you have seen and heard.

But Paul's nephew heard of the plot, and he came and got into the barracks, and told Paul.

he said, "I will hear your case as soon as your accusers arrive." And he gave orders that he should be kept in Herod's palace.

Some days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, and sent for Paul and heard what he had to say about faith in Christ Jesus.

We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice say to me in Hebrew, 'Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me? You cannot kick against the goad!'

So God abandoned them, with their heart's cravings, to impurity, and let them degrade their own bodies.

The real Jew is the man who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, a spiritual, not a literal, thing. Such a man receives his praise not from men, but from God.

when I say that I am greatly pained and my heart is constantly distressed,

So he has mercy on anyone he pleases, and hardens the heart of anyone he pleases.

Brothers, my heart is full of good will toward them; my prayer to God is that they may be saved.

But how are they to call upon him if they have not believed in him? And how are they to believe him if they have never heard him? And how are they to hear unless someone preaches to them?

For if your brother's feelings are hurt by what you eat, your life is not governed by love. You must not, by what you eat, ruin a man for whom Christ died.

You must not, just for the sake of food, undo the work of God. It is true, everything is clean, but it is wrong for a man to hurt the consciences of others by what he eats.

For my part, as far as you are concerned, my brothers, I am convinced that you are already full of goodness of heart, endowed with perfect knowledge, and well qualified to instruct one another.

As the Scripture says, "They who have never been told of him will see, And they who have never heard will understand!"

so that, if it is God's will, I may come with a glad heart to see you and enjoy a visit with you.

Remember me to Mary, who has worked so hard for you.

Remember me to Tryphaena and Tryphosa, those hard workers in the Lord's cause. Remember me to my dear Persis, who has worked so hard for the Lord,

Everyone has heard of your obedience, and I am very happy about you, but I want you to be wise about what is good and guileless about what is bad.

But, as the Scripture says, there are things "Which no eye ever saw and no ear ever heard, And never occurred to the human mind, Which God has provided for those who love him."

the secrets of his heart are exposed, and he will fall down on his face and worship God, and declare that God is really among you.

Now I urge you, brothers??ou know that the family of Stephanas was the first to be converted in Greece, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of God's people??16 I want you to enlist under such leaders, and under anyone who joins with you and works hard.

They have cheered my heart, and yours too. You should appreciate such men.

Why, I felt in my heart that the end must be death. That was to keep me from relying on myself instead of on God, who can even raise the dead.

For if I hurt your feelings, who is there to cheer me up but the man whose feelings I hurt?

This is what I said in my letter, so that I might avoid coming and having my feelings hurt by the very people who might have been expected to make me happy, for I felt sure about you all, that what made me happy would make you all happy.

For I was in great trouble and distress of mind when I wrote you, and I shed many tears as I did it, yet it was not to hurt your feelings, but to make you realize the extraordinary affection I have for you.

But if anyone has hurt anybody's feelings, it is not so much mine, as yours, or at least those of some of you, not to be too hard upon you all.

You are my recommendations, written on my heart, for everybody to read and understand.

You show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by me, written not in ink, but in the Spirit of the living God, and not on tablets of stone, but on the human heart.

So since by the mercy of God I am engaged in this service, I never lose heart.

For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in my heart, to give me the light of the knowledge of God's glory, that is on the face of Christ.

I am hard pressed on every side, but never cut off: perplexed, but not driven to despair;

So I never lose heart. Though my outer nature is wasting away, my inner is being renewed every day.

I am not trying to recommend myself to you again. I am giving you cause to be proud of me, to use in answering men who pride themselves on external advantages and not on sincerity of heart.

I have kept nothing back from you, men of Corinth; I have opened my heart to you.

I do not mean this as a reflection upon you, for as I said before, you will always have a place in my heart whether I live or die.

For even if I did hurt your feelings with that letter, I cannot regret it; even if I did regret it, when I saw that the letter had hurt your feelings perhaps for a while,

I am glad of it now; not because you had your feelings hurt, but because having them hurt led you to repent, for you took it as God meant you to do, so that you should not lose anything at all through me.

His heart goes out all the more to you, as he recalls how you all obeyed him, and with what reverence and trembling you received him.

I do not mean to be easy upon others and hard upon you,

Thank God, he puts the same devotion to you that I feel into Titus' heart,

Who is weak without my being weak? Whose conscience is hurt without my being fired with indignation?

And I know that this man?? do not know whether it was in the body or out of it, God knows??4 was caught up into Paradise, and heard things that must not be told, which no human being can repeat.

You have heard of my former conduct when I was attached to the Jewish religion??ow furiously I used to persecute the church of God and ravage it,

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

This is all I want to ask you: Did you receive the Spirit through doing what the Law commands, or through believing the message you heard?

When he supplies you with the Spirit and works wonders among you, is it because you do what the Law commands, or because you believe the message you heard?

You also have heard the message of the truth, the good news of your salvation, and believed in him, and through union with him you have been marked with the seal of the holy Spirit that was promised,

This is why I, for my part, since I have heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus that prevails among you and among all God's people,

This is why I, Paul, whom Jesus the Christ has made a prisoner for the sake of you heathen??2 if at least you have heard how I dealt with the mercy of God that was given me for you,

So I ask that what I am having to suffer for your sake may not make me lose heart, for it does you honor.

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

You who are slaves, obey your earthly masters, in reverence and awe, with sincerity of heart, as you would the Christ,

And I have a right to feel in this way about you all, because both when I am in prison and when I am defending and vindicating our right to preach the good news, I have you in my heart as all sharing that privilege with me.

For he has been longing to see you all, and has been greatly distressed because you heard that he was sick.

Do the things that you learned, received, and heard from me, and that you saw me do. Then God who gives peace will be with you.

for what we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love you have for all God's people,

and for the hope of what is stored up for you in heaven. You first heard of it long ago when the true message of the gospel

came among you, to thrive and bear its fruit among you, as it does all over the world, from the time when you first heard about the mercy of God,

That is why, from the day I first heard of it, I have never given up praying for you and asking God to fill you, through full spiritual wisdom and insight, with a clear knowledge of what his will is,

As persons chosen by God, then, consecrated and dearly loved, you must clothe yourselves with tenderness of heart, kindness, humility, gentleness, forbearance.

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

You who are slaves must always obey your earthly masters, not with mere external service, as though you had only men to please, but with sincerity of heart, because you fear the Lord.

The aim of your instruction must be love that springs from a pure heart and from a good conscience and from a sincere faith.

This is a trustworthy saying. Whoever aspires to the office of superintendent sets his heart on a fine work.

For love of money is the root of all the evils, and in their eagerness to get rich, some men wander away from the faith and pierce themselves to the heart with many a pang.

Understand this, that in the last days there are going to be hard times.

and now that I send him back to you, it is like sending my very heart.

Come, brother, let me make something out of you, in a Christian sense! Cheer my heart as a Christian.

This is why we must give the very closest attention to the message we have heard, to keep from ever losing our hold upon it.

how can we escape if we pay no attention to such a salvation as this? It was first proclaimed by the Lord himself, and it was guaranteed to us by those who heard him,

Therefore, my fellow-Christians, who have likewise heard the heavenly invitation, observe how faithful Jesus, the commissioner and high priest of our religion,

See to it, my brothers, that no one of you has a wicked, unbelieving heart, that turns away from the ever-living God,

but encourage one another every day, as long as we can still speak of Today, so that no one of you may have his heart hardened by the pleasantness of sin.

For who was it that heard him speak and yet provoked him? Was it not all those who had escaped from Egypt under Moses' leadership?

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 Jesus in his life on earth offered prayers and entreaties, crying aloud with tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and because of his piety his prayer was heard.

let us draw near to God in sincerity of heart and with perfect faith, with our hearts cleansed from the sense of sin, and our bodies washed with clean water.

And he whom I accept as righteous will find life through his faith. But if a man draws back, my heart can take no pleasure in him."

no trumpet blast and voice whose words made those who heard them beg to be told no more,

You must not be carried away with strange varieties of teaching. The true way to steadfastness of heart is through God's mercy, not through scruples about food, which have never done their adherents any good.

Why, we call those who showed such endurance happy! You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen what the Lord brought out of it, for the Lord is very kind and merciful.

And who is there that can hurt you if you are eager to do what is right?

If it is hard for the upright man to be saved, what will become of the godless and sinful?

For when he was so honored and glorified by God the Father and from the supreme glory there were borne to him such words as these: "This is my Son, my Beloved! He is my Chosen!"??18 we heard these words borne from heaven when we were with him on that sacred mountain.

and saved the upright Lot who was so distressed by the immoral conduct of unprincipled men??8 for as long as that upright man lived among them, day after day his upright soul was tormented by what he saw and heard of their lawless actions??9 then the Lord knows how to rescue God-fearing people from trial and to punish wrongdoers while they are being kept for the Day of Judgment,

They have left the straight path and gone astray. They have followed the path of Balaam, the son of Beor, who set his heart on dishonest gain,

speaking of it as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which ignorant, unsteadfast people twist to their own ruin, just as they do the rest of the Scriptures.

It is what existed from the beginning, that we announce; what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have beheld, and touched with our hands; it is the very message of life??2 for life has been revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and announce to you that eternal life that was with the Father and has been revealed to us??3 it is what we have seen and heard that we announce to you also, so that you may share our fellowship, for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ,