calling the bad good

²⁰Woe to you who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light, and light for darkness; who exchange bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

¹⁵Those who justify the impious, and those who condemn the just, both are abominable with God.

⁹Let love be without falseness: hating evil, clinging to what is good,

³For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine, but instead, according to their own desires, they will gather to themselves teachers, with itching ears, ⁴and certainly, they will turn their hearing away from the truth, and they will be turned toward fables.

⁴³For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor does an evil tree produce good fruit. ⁴⁴For each and every tree is known by its fruit. For they do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather the grape from the bramble bush. ⁴⁵A good man, from the good storehouse of his heart, offers what is good. And an evil man, from the evil storehouse, offers what is evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

¹⁵And he said to them: “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the sight of men. But God knows your hearts. For what is lifted up by men is an abomination in the sight of God.

¹⁷Therefore, he who knows that he ought to do a good thing, and does not do it, for him it is a sin.

¹¹Most beloved, do not be willing to imitate what is evil; instead imitate what is good. Whoever does good is of God. Whoever does evil has not seen God.

¹⁷You have wearied the Lord with your speeches, and you have said, “In what way, have we wearied him?” In that you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such as these please him,” or certainly, “Where is the God of judgment?”

²²For by deception you have caused the heart of the just to grieve, whom I would not sadden. And I have strengthened the hands of the impious, so that he would not be turned back from his evil way and live.

²⁴Those who say to the impious, “You are just,” shall be cursed by the people, and the tribes shall detest them. ²⁵Those who argue against the impious shall be praised, and a blessing shall come upon them.

²¹But test all things. Hold on to whatever is good. ²²Abstain from every kind of evil.

⁹Do you not know that the iniquitous will not possess the kingdom of God? Do not choose to wander astray. For neither fornicators, nor servants of idolatry, nor adulterers, ¹⁰nor the effeminate, nor males who sleep with males, nor thieves, nor the avaricious, nor the inebriated, nor slanderers, nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God.

²³But if your eye has been corrupted, your entire body will be darkened. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great will that darkness be!

¹¹And so, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead, refute them.

²⁷Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed sepulchers, which outwardly appear brilliant to men, yet truly, inside, they are filled with the bones of the dead and with all filth. ²⁸So also, you certainly appear to men outwardly to be just. But inwardly you are filled with hypocrisy and iniquity.