Wednesday, November 11

1Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God;

2for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

3For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;

4that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,

5not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;

6that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.

7For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.

8Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.

9But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;

10and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more;

11that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you,

12that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.

48But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.

49'I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

50But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished!

51Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division.

52For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three.

53Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.'

54Then He also said to the multitudes, 'Whenever you see a cloud rising out of the west, immediately you say, 'A shower is coming'; and so it is.

55And when you see the south wind blow, you say, 'There will be hot weather'; and there is.

56Hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time?

57'Yes, and why, even of yourselves, do you not judge what is right?

58When you go with your adversary to the magistrate, make every effort along the way to settle with him, lest he drag you to the judge, the judge deliver you to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison.

59I tell you, you shall not depart from there till you have paid the very last mite.'