1 Samuel 25:12

But we beg you, brothers, to know those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you,

Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood.

Remember your leaders, men who spoke to you the word of God, and considering the results of their conduct, imitate their faith.

either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of Yahweh, even pestilence in the land, and Yahweh’s angel destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.’ ”

God has set some in the assembly: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracle workers, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, and various kinds of languages.

subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.

Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and in teaching.

But when you make a feast, ask the poor, the maimed, the lame, or the blind;

Therefore watch, remembering that for a period of three years I didn’t cease to admonish everyone night and day with tears.

Yet in the same way, these also in their dreaming defile the flesh, despise authority, and slander celestial beings.

Moses returned to Yahweh, and said, “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made themselves gods of gold.

I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

“When the sky is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess your name, and turn from their sin, when you afflict them,

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel. Therefore hear the word from my mouth, and warn them from me.

The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against the shepherds. I will require my sheep at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the sheep. The shepherds won’t feed themselves any more. I will deliver my sheep from their mouth, that they may not be food for them.”

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see; and that those who see may become blind.”

that you also be in subjection to such, and to everyone who helps in the work and labors.

I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more abundantly, am I loved the less?

for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ,

Greet all of your leaders and all the saints. The Italians greet you.

Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment.

Likewise, you younger ones, be subject to the elder. Yes, all of you clothe yourselves with humility, to subject yourselves to one another; for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Yahweh’s angel said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hands.”

Seven days were fulfilled, after Yahweh had struck the river.

Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

Yahweh said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your fathers’ house with you shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary; and you and your sons with you shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood.

Of the children of Israel’s half, you shall take one drawn out of every fifty, of the persons, of the cattle, of the donkeys, and of the flocks, of all the livestock, and give them to the Levites, who perform the duty of Yahweh’s tabernacle.”

Yahweh will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.

Yahweh will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.

Yahweh will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumors, with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed.

Yahweh will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which Yahweh your God has given you.

He raises up the poor out of the dust. He lifts up the needy from the dunghill to make them sit with princes and inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are Yahweh’s. He has set the world on them.

But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; and they said, “No; but we will have a king over us,

There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of Yahweh. Yahweh said, “It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.”

So Gad came to David, and told him, and said to him, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.”

and he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, “Yahweh says, ‘Because you have been disobedient to Yahweh’s mouth, and have not kept the commandment which Yahweh your God commanded you,

Now Elisha had spoken to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, “Arise, and go, you and your household, and stay for a while wherever you can; for Yahweh has called for a famine. It will also come on the land for seven years.”

The watchmen who go about the city found me; “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”

Your rigging is untied. They couldn’t strengthen the foot of their mast. They couldn’t spread the sail. Then the prey of a great plunder was divided. The lame took the prey.

Then the lame man will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing; for waters will break out in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.

Your watchmen lift up their voice. Together they sing; for they shall see eye to eye when Yahweh returns to Zion.

I have set watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem. They will never be silent day nor night. You who call on Yahweh, take no rest,

“Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in its wide places, if you can find a man, if there is anyone who does justly, who seeks truth, then I will pardon her.

I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not listen!’

But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride. My eye will weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because Yahweh’s flock has been taken captive.

“Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he will die. Because you have not given him warning, he will die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered; but I will require his blood at your hand.

“Son of man, when a land sins against me by committing a trespass, and I stretch out my hand on it, and break the staff of its bread, and send famine on it, and cut off from it man and animal;

“Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my wrath on it in blood, to cut off from it man and animal;

“Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and tell them, ‘When I bring the sword on a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and set him for their watchman;

“So you, son of man: I have set you a watchman to the house of Israel. Therefore hear the word from my mouth, and give them warnings from me.

A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God. A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.

So I fed the flock of slaughter, especially the oppressed of the flock. I took for myself two staffs. The one I called “Favor”, and the other I called “Union”, and I fed the flock.

It was broken in that day; and thus the poor of the flock that listened to me knew that it was Yahweh’s word.

the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.

“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.

Then the disciples came, and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”

so that the multitude wondered when they saw the mute speaking, the injured healed, the lame walking, and the blind seeing—and they glorified the God of Israel.

So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told their lord all that was done.

If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having your two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire,

But truly I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land.

The apostles, when they had returned, told him what things they had done. He took them and withdrew apart to a desert region of a city called Bethsaida.

The Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his lord will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the right times?

“That servant came, and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor, maimed, blind, and lame.’

For I tell you that none of those men who were invited will taste of my supper.’ ”

He called him, and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’

and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

The apostles and the elders were gathered together to see about this matter.

or he who exhorts, to his exhorting; he who gives, let him do it with generosity; he who rules, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

So then each one of us will give account of himself to God.

in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in labors, in watchings, in fastings;

But from those who were reputed to be important—whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God doesn’t show partiality to man—they, I say, who were respected imparted nothing to me,

always in every request of mine on behalf of you all, making my requests with joy,

holding up the word of life, that I may have something to boast in the day of Christ, that I didn’t run in vain nor labor in vain.

Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy, and hold such people in honor,

Therefore, my brothers, beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

Even so, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you, not the Good News of God only, but also our own souls, because you had become very dear to us.

If any man doesn’t obey our word in this letter, note that man, that you have no company with him, to the end that he may be ashamed.

But you be sober in all things, suffer hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill your ministry.

Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord.

how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation—which at the first having been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard,

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch on behalf of your souls, as those who will give account, that they may do this with joy, and not with groaning, for that would be unprofitable for you.

Listen, my beloved brothers. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him?

Out of his mouth proceeds a sharp, double-edged sword, that with it he should strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He treads the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty.

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” He who hears, let him say, “Come!” He who is thirsty, let him come. He who desires, let him take the water of life freely.