Job 21:2

Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him.”

It shall happen, when Yahweh your God brings you into the land that you go to possess, that you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim, and the curse on Mount Ebal.

So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”

Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none.

They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns. They have exhausted themselves, and profit nothing. You will be ashamed of your fruits, because of Yahweh’s fierce anger.”

Those in the good ground, these are those who with an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it tightly, and produce fruit with perseverance.

This is now, beloved, the second letter that I have written to you; and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by reminding you,

“These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, when you have crossed over the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin.

Hear now my reasoning. Listen to the pleadings of my lips.

The humble shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise Yahweh who seek after him. Let your hearts live forever.

I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says Yahweh.

For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.

Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

Yes, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge;

Yes, I will make every effort that you may always be able to remember these things even after my departure.

Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children—

Be careful, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn away to serve other gods and worship them;

All Israel, with their elders, officers, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests, who carried the ark of Yahweh’s covenant, the foreigner as well as the native; half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel.

But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of Yahweh, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He didn’t depart from the sins of Jeroboam, with which he made Israel to sin.

Then you will prosper, if you observe to do the statutes and the ordinances which Yahweh gave Moses concerning Israel. Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid, and don’t be dismayed.

and he went out to meet Asa, and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin! Yahweh is with you, while you are with him; and if you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.

“Teach me, and I will hold my peace. Cause me to understand my error.

But you are forgers of lies. You are all physicians of no value.

How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.

My son, let them not depart from your eyes. Keep sound wisdom and discretion:

Listen, sons, to a father’s instruction. Pay attention and know understanding;

Take firm hold of instruction. Don’t let her go. Keep her, for she is your life.

They will not labor in vain nor give birth for calamity; for they are the offspring of Yahweh’s blessed and their descendants with them.

“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and cut out cisterns for themselves: broken cisterns that can’t hold water.

It will happen, if you diligently listen to me,” says Yahweh, “to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but to make the Sabbath day holy, to do no work therein;

They will cast their silver in the streets, and their gold will be as an unclean thing. Their silver and their gold won’t be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh’s wrath. They won’t satisfy their souls or fill their bellies; because it has been the stumbling block of their iniquity.

When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom, and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes, and snatches away that which has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown by the roadside.

“When, therefore, you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),

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

Having then a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let’s hold tightly to our confession.

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;

Remember therefore how you have received and heard. Keep it and repent. If therefore you won’t watch, I will come as a thief, and you won’t know what hour I will come upon you.

Then Judah came near to him, and said, “Oh, my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears, and don’t let your anger burn against your servant; for you are even as Pharaoh.

He said, “If you will diligently listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, and will do that which is right in his eyes, and will pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am Yahweh who heals you.”

It shall happen, if you shall listen diligently to my commandments which I command you today, to love Yahweh your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

Only take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded you, to love Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

When they told it to Jotham, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim and lifted up his voice, cried out, and said to them, “Listen to me, you men of Shechem, that God may listen to you.

There the wicked cease from troubling. There the weary are at rest.

“Shouldn’t the multitude of words be answered? Should a man full of talk be justified?

Listen carefully to my speech. Let my declaration be in your ears.

Are the consolations of God too small for you, even the word that is gentle toward you?

“I will show you, listen to me; that which I have seen I will declare

“I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!

“How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak.

“Behold, I waited for your words, and I listened for your reasoning, while you searched out what to say.

“However, Job, please hear my speech, and listen to all my words.

Mark well, Job, and listen to me. Hold your peace, and I will speak.

“Hear my words, you wise men. Give ear to me, you who have knowledge.

Men of understanding will tell me, yes, every wise man who hears me:

Yes, he would have allured you out of distress, into a wide place, where there is no restriction. That which is set on your table would be full of fatness.

Many say, “Who will show us any good?” Yahweh, let the light of your face shine on us.

Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of Yahweh.

They shall be abundantly satisfied with the abundance of your house. You will make them drink of the river of your pleasures.

“Surely every man walks like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up, and doesn’t know who shall gather.

My soul shall be satisfied as with the richest food. My mouth shall praise you with joyful lips,

that the wise man may hear, and increase in learning; that the man of understanding may attain to sound counsel:

“Now therefore, my sons, listen to me, for blessed are those who keep my ways.

He who answers before he hears, that is folly and shame to him.

Why do you set your eyes on that which is not? For it certainly sprouts wings like an eagle and flies in the sky.

Don’t look at the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly.

What does man gain from all his labor in which he labors under the sun?

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.

a man to whom God gives riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him no power to eat of it, but an alien eats it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.

The labor of fools wearies every one of them; for he doesn’t know how to go to the city.

If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land;

He feeds on ashes. A deceived heart has turned him aside; and he can’t deliver his soul, nor say, “Isn’t there a lie in my right hand?”

Some pour out gold from the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god. They fall down— yes, they worship.

“Listen to me, my people; and hear me, my nation, for a law will go out from me, and I will establish my justice for a light to the peoples.

Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.

From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years, Yahweh’s word has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; but you have not listened.

I bought the field that was in Anathoth of Hanamel my uncle’s son, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver.

You will have plenty to eat, and be satisfied, and will praise the name of Yahweh, your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and my people will never again be disappointed.

Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be with you, as you say.

Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’

Behold, isn’t it of Yahweh of Armies that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity?

And in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine rules made by men.’ ”

He said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.”

He called all the multitude to himself, and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand.

He wanted to fill his belly with the husks that the pigs ate, but no one gave him any.

Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let’s eat, and celebrate;

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and spoke out to them, “You men of Judea, and all you who dwell at Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to my words.

but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn’t arrive at the law of righteousness.

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

I speak as to wise men. Judge what I say.

Therefore we ought to pay greater attention to the things that were heard, lest perhaps we drift away.

Don’t be carried away by various and strange teachings, for it is good that the heart be established by grace, not by food, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.

So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger;