Wednesday, December 1

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.

1Now it happened on one of those days, as He taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel, that the chief priests and the scribes, together with the elders, confronted Him

2and spoke to Him, saying, 'Tell us, by what authority are You doing these things? Or who is he who gave You this authority?'

3But He answered and said to them, 'I also will ask you one thing, and answer Me:

4The baptism of John—was it from heaven or from men?'

5And they reasoned among themselves, saying, 'If we say, 'From heaven,' He will say, 'Why then did you not believe him?'

6But if we say, 'From men,' all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet.'

7So they answered that they did not know where it was from.

8And Jesus said to them, 'Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.'