James 3:15

“I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you.

Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report: if there is any virtue and if there is any praise, think about these things.

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

John answered, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.

If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you.

I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.

He takes the wise in their own craftiness; the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong.

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?

He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed: that he might destroy the works of the devil.

Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

For those who are such don’t serve our Lord, Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by their smooth and flattering speech, they deceive the hearts of the innocent.

God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?

Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel.” For Yahweh had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that Yahweh might bring evil on Absalom.

When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey, arose, and went home, to his city, and set his house in order, and hanged himself; and he died, and was buried in the tomb of his father.

He said to them, “I saw Satan having fallen like lightning from heaven.

Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out.

For your obedience has become known to all. I rejoice therefore over you. But I desire to have you wise in that which is good, but innocent in that which is evil.

Brothers, don’t be children in thoughts, yet in malice be babies, but in thoughts be mature.

Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

unlike Cain, who was of the evil one, and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s righteous.

‘Hear this now, foolish people without understanding, who have eyes, and don’t see, who have ears, and don’t hear:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.

In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn’t linger, and their destruction will not slumber.

The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die,

I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”

Give your servant therefore an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to judge this great people of yours?”

Yahweh brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He makes the thoughts of the peoples to be of no effect.

I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; and God has done it, that men should fear before him.

Now as for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom; and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.

But he turned, and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.”

the Spirit of truth, whom the world can’t receive; for it doesn’t see him and doesn’t know him. You know him, for he lives with you, and will be in you.

There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God.

but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks,

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow.

knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts

I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all kinds of workmanship,

For they are a nation void of counsel. There is no understanding in them.

Now give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people; for who can judge this great people of yours?”

From the lips of babes and infants you have established strength, because of your adversaries, that you might silence the enemy and the avenger.

Let the wicked fall together into their own nets while I pass by.

For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

Their deeds won’t allow them to turn to their God; for the spirit of prostitution is within them, and they don’t know Yahweh.

Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.

“For I, Yahweh, don’t change; therefore you, sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

For there will arise false christs, and false prophets, and they will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the chosen ones.

You do the works of your father.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God.”

You have not known him, but I know him. If I said, ‘I don’t know him,’ I would be like you, a liar. But I know him and keep his word.

While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become children of light.” Jesus said these things, and he departed and hid himself from them.

I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world comes, and he has nothing in me.

They will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.

because the mind of the flesh is hostile toward God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be.

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil. Cling to that which is good.

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

However that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual.

in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them.

It is no great thing therefore if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.

For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,

You are all children of light and children of the day. We don’t belong to the night, nor to darkness,

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

But false prophets also arose among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction.

As for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you don’t need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, you will remain in him.

They said to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts.”

He seized the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth, and bound him for a thousand years,

We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown, yet a wisdom not of this world nor of the rulers of this world who are coming to nothing.

These are those who cause divisions and are sensual, not having the Spirit.

Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.”

For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.

whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who think about earthly things.

But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons,

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

for they are spirits of demons, performing signs; which go out to the kings of the whole inhabited earth, to gather them together for the war of that great day of God, the Almighty.

But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David’s brother; and Jonadab was a very subtle man.

Someone told David, saying, “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” David said, “Yahweh, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.”

The counsel of Ahithophel, which he gave in those days, was as if a man inquired at the inner sanctuary of God. All the counsel of Ahithophel both was like this with David and with Absalom.

“For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.”

He said, ‘This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns, build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.

I know what I will do, so that when I am removed from management, they may receive me into their houses.’

“His lord commended the dishonest manager because he had done wisely, for the children of this world are, in their own generation, wiser than the children of the light.

For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him.

You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and the father of lies.

and said, “You son of the devil, full of all deceit and all cunning, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong.

for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men?

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.

even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

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

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn’t the Father’s, but is the world’s.

But to you I say, to the rest who are in Thyatira, as many as don’t have this teaching, who don’t know what some call ‘the deep things of Satan,’ to you I say, I am not putting any other burden on you.

They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is “Abaddon”, but in Greek, he has the name “Apollyon”.

The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.