conjuring up spirits

¹Most beloved, do not be willing to believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are of God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.

¹⁹And though they say to you, “Seek from seers and diviners,” they who hiss in their incantations, should not the people seek from their God, for the sake of the living, and not from the dead?

¹Now the Spirit has clearly said that, in the end times, some persons will depart from the faith, paying attention to spirits of error and the doctrines of devils,

⁸Be sober and vigilant. For your adversary, the devil, is like a roaring lion, traveling around and seeking those whom he might devour.

¹“If there will have arisen in your midst a prophet, or someone who claims that he had seen a dream, and if he will have predicted sign and portent, ²and if what he has spoken happens, and he says to you, ‘Let us go and follow strange gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ ³you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you, so that it may become clear whether or not you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.

⁷And he called the twelve. And he began to send them out in twos, and he gave them authority over unclean spirits.

⁷Therefore, be subject to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

¹James, servant of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes of the dispersion, greetings. ²My brothers, when you have fallen into various trials, consider everything a joy, ³knowing that the proving of your faith exercises patience, ⁴and patience brings a work to perfection, so that you may be perfect and whole, deficient in nothing. ⁵But if anyone among you is in need of wisdom, let him petition God, who gives abundantly to all without reproach, and it shall be given to him. ⁶But he should ask with faith, doubting nothing. For he who doubts is like a wave on the ocean, which is moved about by the wind and carried away;

²⁹And setting out from there, they passed through Galilee. And he intended that no one know about it.

¹²For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the directors of this world of darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in high places.

¹¹nor one who uses spells, nor one who consults demonic spirits, nor a diviner, nor one who seeks the truth from the dead.

¹My little sons, this I write to you, so that you may not sin. But if anyone has sinned, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Just One. ²And he is the propitiation for our sins. And not only for our sins, but also for those of the whole world. ³And we can be sure that we have known him by this: if we observe his commandments. ⁴Whoever claims that he knows him, and yet does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ⁵But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the charity of God is perfected. And by this we know that we are in him. ⁶Whoever declares himself to remain in him, ought to walk just as he himself walked.

¹⁷Let everything whatsoever that you do, whether in word or in deed, be done all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

¹In the days of one of the judges, when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a man from Bethlehem in Judah departed to sojourn in the region of the Moabites with his wife and two children. ²He called himself Elimelech, and his wife Naomi, and his two sons, the one Mahlon, and the other Chilion, Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. And entering into the region of the Moabites, they stayed there. ³And Elimelech the husband of Naomi died; and she remained with her sons. ⁴They took wives from among the Moabites, of whom one was called Orpah, and the other Ruth. And they lived there ten years. ⁵And they both died, namely Mahlon and Chilion, and the woman was left alone, bereaved of her two children and her husband. ⁶And she arose so that she might journey to her native land, with both her daughters-in-law, from the region of the Moabites. For she had heard that the Lord had provided for his people and had given them food.