Genesis 31:40

For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

that you won’t be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and perseverance inherited the promises.

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.

Jacob loved Rachel. He said, “I will serve you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter.”

He said, “I am God, the God of your father. Don’t be afraid to go down into Egypt, for there I will make of you a great nation.

The sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls. All the souls of the house of Jacob, who came into Egypt, were seventy.

They also said to Pharaoh, “We have come to live as foreigners in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks. For the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now therefore, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.”

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.

Yahweh said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” He went, and met him on God’s mountain, and kissed him.

Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with Moses’ sons and his wife to Moses into the wilderness where he was encamped, at the Mountain of God.

When they had departed from Rephidim, and had come to the wilderness of Sinai, they encamped in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mountain.

Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons; and now Yahweh your God has made you as the stars of the sky for multitude.

He arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, God’s Mountain.

He will be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”

When they had appointed elders for them in every assembly, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they had believed.

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

I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing.

Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know my service with which I have served you.”

They took their livestock, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt—Jacob, and all his offspring with him,

The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.

When they came to Reuel, their father, he said, “How is it that you have returned so early today?”

Now Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, how Yahweh had brought Israel out of Egypt.

Moses said to Hobab, the son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law, “We are journeying to the place of which Yahweh said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us, and we will treat you well; for Yahweh has spoken good concerning Israel.”

For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked of their clothing.

If you don’t know, most beautiful among women, follow the tracks of the sheep. Graze your young goats beside the shepherds’ tents.

Yahweh says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his offspring prosper, sitting on David’s throne, and ruling in Judah.”

“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord has set over his household, to give them their food in due season?

(but how could someone who doesn’t know how to rule one’s own house take care of God’s assembly?)

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

Now therefore, my son, obey my voice. Arise, flee to Laban, my brother, in Haran.

Arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father. Take a wife from there from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.

Jacob served seven years for Rachel. They seemed to him but a few days, for the love he had for her.

That which was torn of animals, I didn’t bring to you. I bore its loss. Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.

and take double money in your hand, and take back the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks. Perhaps it was an oversight.

God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.

There I will provide for you; for there are yet five years of famine; lest you come to poverty, you, and your household, and all that you have.” ’

Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they got themselves possessions therein, and were fruitful, and multiplied exceedingly.

Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, “Please let me go and return to my brothers who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive.” Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.

Moses rose up with Joshua, his servant, and Moses went up onto God’s Mountain.

They set forward from the Mount of Yahweh three days’ journey. The ark of Yahweh’s covenant went before them three days’ journey, to seek out a resting place for them.

“Yahweh our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying, ‘You have lived long enough at this mountain.

Now Heber the Kenite had separated himself from the Kenites, even from the children of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law, and had pitched his tent as far as the oak in Zaanannim, which is by Kedesh.

So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place.

when they were but a few men in number, yes, very few, and foreigners in it.

He increased his people greatly, and made them stronger than their adversaries.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to stay up late, eating the bread of toil, for he gives sleep to his loved ones.

I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under the sky. It is a heavy burden that God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.

For all his days are sorrows, and his travail is grief; yes, even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.

I have also seen wisdom under the sun in this way, and it seemed great to me.

They will spread them before the sun, the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, which they have served, after which they have walked, which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered or be buried. They will be like dung on the surface of the earth.

“As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “surely because my sheep became a prey, and my sheep became food to all the animals of the field, because there was no shepherd. My shepherds didn’t search for my sheep, but the shepherds fed themselves, and didn’t feed my sheep.”

Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, himself and our fathers,

So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

I beg you therefore, be imitators of me.

No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

Brothers, be imitators together of me, and note those who walk this way, even as you have us for an example.

You became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit,

For this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that when you received from us the word of the message of God, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also works in you who believe.

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

not because we don’t have the right, but to make ourselves an example to you, that you should imitate us.

Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.

Let’s fear therefore, lest perhaps anyone of you should seem to have come short of a promise of entering into his rest.

I John, your brother and partner with you in the oppression, Kingdom, and perseverance in Christ Jesus, was on the isle that is called Patmos because of God’s Word and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been killed for the Word of God, and for the testimony of the Lamb which they had.

I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as didn’t worship the beast nor his image, and didn’t receive the mark on their forehead and on their hand. They lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

The flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks produced streaked, speckled, and spotted.

These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.

Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to God’s mountain, to Horeb.

It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.

You shall answer and say before Yahweh your God, “My father was a Syrian ready to perish. He went down into Egypt, and lived there, few in number. There he became a great, mighty, and populous nation.

They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold.

She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp doesn’t go out by night.

There is one who is alone, and he has neither son nor brother. There is no end to all of his labor, neither are his eyes satisfied with wealth. “For whom then, do I labor and deprive my soul of enjoyment?” This also is vanity. Yes, it is a miserable business.

The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not allow him to sleep.

I turned around, and my heart sought to know and to search out, and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity, and that foolishness is madness.

For he doesn’t know that which will be; for who can tell him how it will be?

All this I have seen, and applied my mind to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt.

When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on the earth (even though eyes see no sleep day or night),

Therefore Yahweh says concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: “He will have no one to sit on David’s throne. His dead body will be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.

Jacob fled into the country of Aram, and Israel served to get a wife, and for a wife he tended flocks and herds.

There were shepherds in the same country staying in the field, and keeping watch by night over their flock.

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?

When they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were gathered together. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, and said, “It was necessary that God’s word should be spoken to you first. Since indeed you thrust it from yourselves, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.

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.

For they refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge those who are like that.

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,

one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

For you remember, brothers, our labor and travail; for working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached to you the Good News of God.

But when Timothy came just now to us from you, and brought us glad news of your faith and love, and that you have good memories of us always, longing to see us, even as we also long to see you,

For you know how you ought to imitate us. For we didn’t behave ourselves rebelliously among you,

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

Take, brothers, for an example of suffering and of perseverance, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.