Tuesday, July 8, 2025

^14:9For to this end Christ died, rose, and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. ¹⁰But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. ¹¹For it is written, “‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘to me every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess to God.’” ¹²So then each one of us will give account of himself to God. ¹³Therefore let’s not judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block in his brother’s way, or an occasion for falling. ¹⁴I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean of itself; except that to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. ¹⁵Yet if because of food your brother is grieved, you walk no longer in love. Don’t destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. ¹⁶Then don’t let your good be slandered, ¹⁷for God’s Kingdom is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. ¹⁸For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men.

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^12:14But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how they might destroy him. ¹⁵Jesus, perceiving that, withdrew from there. Great multitudes followed him; and he healed them all, ¹⁶and commanded them that they should not make him known, ²²Then one possessed by a demon, blind and mute, was brought to him; and he healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. ²³All the multitudes were amazed, and said, “Can this be the son of David?” ²⁴But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “This man does not cast out demons except by Beelzebul, the prince of the demons.” ²⁵Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. ²⁶If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? ²⁷If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. ²⁸But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then God’s Kingdom has come upon you. ²⁹Or how can one enter into the house of the strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first bind the strong man? Then he will plunder his house. ³⁰“He who is not with me is against me, and he who doesn’t gather with me, scatters.

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