2 Corinthians 6:9

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

Yes, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.

For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.

for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth.

Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I am coming to you swiftly, and will move your lamp stand out of its place, unless you repent.

“Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

For God’s Kingdom is not in word, but in power.

Blessed is the man whom you discipline, Yah, and teach out of your law,

Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

by which, when you read, you can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ,

For our exhortation is not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in deception.

The princes of Succoth said, “Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in your hand, that we should give bread to your army?”

I will be his father, and he will be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men;

I am a marvel to many, but you are my strong refuge.

Yah has punished me severely, but he has not given me over to death.

and asked for letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, “We want to hear you again concerning this.”

but if they are questions about words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves. For I don’t want to be a judge of these matters.”

But when some were hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.

I found him to be accused about questions of their law, but not to be charged with anything worthy of death or of imprisonment.

For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Good News—not in wisdom of words, so that the cross of Christ wouldn’t be made void.

We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor.

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one.

But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,

Do you look at things only as they appear in front of your face? If anyone trusts in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again with himself, that even as he is Christ’s, so we also are Christ’s.

Truly the signs of an apostle were worked among you in all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty works.

of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

partly, being exposed to both reproaches and oppressions; and partly, becoming partakers with those who were treated so.

and some save, snatching them out of the fire with fear, hating even the clothing stained by the flesh.

You have made us like sheep for food, and have scattered us among the nations.

It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.

My son, don’t despise Yahweh’s discipline, neither be weary of his correction;

“I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned; for you are Yahweh my God.

He said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How will you understand all of the parables?

being upset because they taught the people and proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”

What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each man will get his praise from God.

For, I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men.

are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep.

who also made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal flesh.

We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

in pureness, in knowledge, in perseverance, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in sincere love,

You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him;

There you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

You shall consider in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Yahweh your God disciplines you.

For calamity from God is a terror to me. Because of his majesty, I can do nothing.

He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth.

“You shall say this to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.’ ”

“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats.

“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them;

This continued for two years, so that all those who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.

But Felix, having more exact knowledge concerning the Way, deferred them, saying, “When Lysias, the commanding officer, comes down, I will decide your case.”

For if in anything I have boasted to him on your behalf, I was not disappointed. But as we spoke all things to you in truth, so our glorying also which I made before Titus was found to be truth.

But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

But though I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not unskilled in knowledge. No, in every way we have been revealed to you in all things.

Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, and in deaths often.

He therefore who supplies the Spirit to you and does miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith?

that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;

For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Isn’t it even you, before our Lord Jesus at his coming?

But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear. So I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn’t repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn’t worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can’t see, hear, or walk.

Shall I then take my bread, my water, and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men who I don’t know where they come from?”

But as the disciples stood around him, he rose up, and entered into the city. On the next day he went out with Barnabas to Derbe.

Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also were conversing with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign deities,” because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.

You see and hear that not at Ephesus alone, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are no gods that are made with hands.

but had certain questions against him about their own religion, and about one Jesus, who was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.

of whom I have no certain thing to write to my lord. Therefore I have brought him out before you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, that, after examination, I may have something to write.

But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.

in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of God’s Spirit; so that from Jerusalem, and around as far as to Illyricum, I have fully preached the Good News of Christ;

But when we are judged, we are punished by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.

Why do we also stand in jeopardy every hour?

I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by the manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are revealed to God, and I hope that we are revealed also in your consciences.

As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent.

About that time there arose no small disturbance concerning the Way.