due to the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. You heard of this hope originally in the message of the Truth, in that gospel

It is His will that they should understand the glorious wealth which this secret holds for the Gentiles, in the fact of Christ's presence among you as your hope of glory.

This is the Christ we proclaim; we train everyone and teach everyone the full scope of this knowledge, in order to set everyone before God mature in Christ;

I say this to prevent you from being deluded by plausible arguments from anybody;

"Hands off this!" "Taste not that!" "Touch not this!" ??22 referring to things that perish by being used? These rules are determined by human precepts and tenets;

Children, obey your parents at every point, for this pleases the Lord right well.

And when this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans; also, see that you read the letter that reaches you from Laodicea.

This salutation is in my own hand, from Paul. 'Remember I am in prison. Grace be with you.'

We thank God constantly for this too, that when you received the word of the divine message from us, you took it not as a human word but for what it really is, the word of God. It proves effective in you believers,

then, amid all my own distress and trouble, I was cheered ??this faith of yours encouraged me.

not to gratify sensual passion like the Gentiles in their ignorance of God ??6 no one is to defraud or overreach his brother in this matter, for the Lord avenges all these sins, as we told you already in our solemn protest against them.

hence, he who disregards this, disregards not man but the God who gave you his holy Spirit.

as indeed is your practice towards all the brothers throughout all Macedonia. We beseech you, brothers, to excel in this more and more;

He who calls you is faithful, he will do this.

I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read aloud to all the [holy] brothers.

In view of this we always pray for you, asking our God to make you worthy of his calling and by his power to fulfil every good resolve and every effort of faith,

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?

it was for this that he called you by our gospel, to gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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!

The salutation is in my own hand, Paul's; that is a mark in every letter of mine. This is how I write.

I render thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has made me able for this; he considered me trustworthy and appointed me to the ministry,

the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all": ??in due time this was attested,

Though I hope to come to you before long, I am writing to you in this way,

Lay this before the brotherhood, and you will be an excellent minister of Christ Jesus, brought up on the truths of the faith and on the lessons of the good doctrine you have already followed.

(When a widow has children or grandchildren, they must learn that the first duty of religion is to their own household, and that they should make some return to those who have brought them up. In God's sight this is an acceptable thing.)

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;

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.

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.

But the solid foundation laid by God remains, and this is its inscription: the Lord knows who are his, and 'let everyone who names the name of the Lord give up evil.'

Mark this, there are hard times coming in the last days.

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

and it schools us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions and to live a life of self-mastery, of integrity, and of piety in this present world,

Tell them all this, exhort and reprove, with full authority; let no one slight you.

It is a sure saying. I want you to insist on this, that those who have faith in God must profess honest occupations. Such counsels are right and good for men.

Perhaps this was why you and he were parted for a while, that you might get him back for good,

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.

I send you this letter relying on your obedience; I know you will do even more than I tell you.

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.

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.

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

For he says this somewhere about the seventh day: And God rested from all his works on the seventh day.

And again in this passage, they shall never enter my Rest.

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.

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.

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

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

For Melchizedek, the king of Salem, a priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham on his return from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him ??2 who had a tenth part of everything assigned him by Abraham ??this Melchizedek is primarily a king of righteousness (that is the meaning of his name); then, besides that, king of Salem (which means, king of peace).

Now mark the dignity of this man. The patriarch Abraham paid him a tenth of the spoils.

This becomes all the more plain when another priest emerges resembling Melchizedek,

And this makes Jesus surety for a superior covenant.

The point of all this is, we do have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of Majesty in the heavens,

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel when that day comes, saith the Lord; I will set my laws within their mind, inscribing them upon their hearts; I will be a God to them, and they shall be a People to me;

A tent was set up, the outer tent, containing the lampstand, the table, and the loaves of the Presence; this is called the Holy place.

above this were the cherubims of the Glory, overshadowing the mercy seat ??matters which it is impossible for me to discuss at present in detail.

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

He mediates a new covenant for this reason, that those who have been called may obtain the eternal inheritance they have been promised, now that a death has occurred which redeems them from the transgressions involved in the first covenant.

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

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 it is by this will that we are consecrated, because Jesus Christ once for all has offered up his body.

This is the covenant I will make with them when that day comes, saith the Lord, I will set my laws upon their hearts, inscribing them upon their minds, he adds,

partly by being held up yourselves to obloquy and anguish, partly by making common cause with those who fared in this way;

It was for this that the men of old won their record.

Now people who speak in this way plainly show they are in search of a fatherland.

Therefore, with all this host of witnesses encircling us, we must strip off every handicap, strip off sin with its clinging folds, to run our appointed course steadily,

Therefore let us render thanks that we get an unshaken realm; and in this way let us worship God acceptably ??29 but with godly fear and awe, for our God is indeed a consuming fire.

I urge you to this all the more, that I may get back to you the sooner.

I appeal to you, brothers, to bear with this appeal of mine. It is but a short letter.

Make no mistake about this, my beloved brothers:

Pure, unsoiled religion in the judgment of God the Father means this: to care for orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself from the stain of the world.

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,"

Listen, my beloved brothers; has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the realm which he has promised to those who love him?

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

blessing and cursing stream from the same lips! My brothers, this ought not to be.

What, do you consider this is an idle word of scripture? ??'He yearns jealously for the spirit he set within us.')

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

the Spirit of messiah within them foretold all the suffering of messiah and his after-glory, and they pondered when or how this was to come;

to them it was revealed that they got this intelligence not for themselves but for you, regarding all that has now been disclosed to you by those who preached the gospel to you through the holy Spirit sent from heaven. The very angels long to get a glimpse of this!

It was in this way long ago that the holy women who hoped in God adorned themselves. They were submissive to their husbands.

never paying back evil for evil, never reviling when you are reviled, but on the contrary blessing. For this is your vocation, to bless and to inherit blessing;

Well, as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, let this very conviction that he who has suffered in the flesh gets quit of sin,

(for this was why the gospel was preached to the dead as well, that while they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live as God lives in the spirit).

Now I make this appeal to your presbyters (for I am a presbyter myself, I was a witness of what Christ suffered and I am to share the glory that will be revealed),

By the hand of Silvanus, a faithful brother (in my opinion), I have written you these few lines of encouragement, to testify that this is what the true grace of God means. Stand in that grace.

Inasmuch as his power divine has bestowed on us every requisite for life and piety by the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence ??4 bestowing on us thereby promises precious and supreme, that by means of them you may escape the corruption produced within the world by lust, and participate in the divine nature ??5 for this very reason, do you contrive to make it your whole concern to furnish your faith with resolution, resolution with intelligence,

Hence I mean to keep on reminding you of this, although you are aware of it and are fixed in the Truth as it is;

so long as I am in this tent, I deem it proper to stir you up by way of reminder,

Yes, and I will see to it that even when I am gone, you will keep this constantly in mind.

when he was invested with honour and glory by God the Father, and when the following voice was borne to him from the sublime Glory, "This is my son, the Beloved, in whom I delight."

and thus we have gained fresh confirmation of the prophetic word. Pray attend to that word; it shines like a lamp within a darksome spot, till the Day dawns and the daystar rises within your hearts ??20 understanding this, at the outset, that no prophetic scripture allows a man to interpret it by himself;

This is the second letter I have already written to you, beloved, stirring up your pure mind by way of reminder,

Beloved, you must not ignore this one fact, that with the Lord a single day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a single day.

Then, beloved, as you are expecting this, be eager to be found by him unspotted and unblemished in serene assurance.

speaking of this as he has done in all his letters ??letters containing some knotty points, which ignorant and unsteady souls twist (as they do the rest of the scriptures) to their own destruction.

We are writing this to you that our own joy may be complete.

My dear children, I am writing this to you that you may not sin; but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father in Jesus Christ the just;

This is how we may be sure we know him, by obeying his commands.

but whoever obeys his word, in him love to God is really complete. This is how we may be sure we are in him:

Who is the real liar? who but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is 'antichrist,' he who disowns the Father and the Son.