Thursday, February 11, 2027

^4:7Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you. ¹¹Don’t speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. ¹²Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another? ¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.” ¹⁴Yet you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. ¹⁵For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.” ¹⁶But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷To him therefore who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin. ^5:1Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you. ²Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. ³Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days. ⁴Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies. ⁵You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. ⁶You have condemned and you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you. ⁷Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receives the early and late rain. ⁸You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. ⁹Don’t grumble, brothers, against one another, so that you won’t be judged. Behold, the judge stands at the door.

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^11:27They came again to Jerusalem, and as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him, ²⁸and they began saying to him, “By what authority do you do these things? Or who gave you this authority to do these things?” ²⁹Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ³⁰The baptism of John—was it from heaven, or from men? Answer me.” ³¹They reasoned with themselves, saying, “If we should say, ‘From heaven;’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ ³²If we should say, ‘From men’”—they feared the people, for all held John to really be a prophet. ³³They answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

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