emptiness

²⁸Come to me, all you who labor and have been burdened, and I will refresh you. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you shall find rest for your souls.

¹A Psalm of David. The Lord directs me, and nothing will be lacking to me. ²He has settled me here, in a place of pasture. He has led me out to the water of refreshment. ³He has converted my soul. He has led me away on the paths of justice, for the sake of his name. ⁴For, even if I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils. For you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they have given me consolation. ⁵You have prepared a table in my sight, opposite those who trouble me. You have anointed my head with oil, and my cup, which inebriates me, how brilliant it is! ⁶And your mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and so may I dwell in the house of the Lord for length of days.

³¹He will not believe, being vainly deceived by error, that he could be redeemed at any price. ³²Before his time is completed, he will pass into ruin and his hands will wither away.

¹²There is a way which seems just to a man, but its conclusion leads to death.

²⁴When an unclean spirit has departed from a man, he walks through waterless places, seeking rest. And not finding any, he says: ‘I will return to my house, from which I departed.’

¹I testify before God, and before Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead through his return and his kingdom: ²that you should preach the word urgently, in season and out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke, with all patience and doctrine. 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. ⁵But as for you, truly, be vigilant, laboring in all things. Do the work of an Evangelist, fulfilling your ministry. Show self-restraint.

¹¹For I know the thoughts that I think over you, says the Lord: thoughts of peace and not of affliction, so that I may give you patience and an end.

⁸But God demonstrates his love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, at the proper time,

¹⁹Now the works of the flesh are manifest; they are: fornication, lust, homosexuality, self-indulgence, ²⁰the serving of idols, drug use, hostility, contentiousness, jealousy, wrath, quarrels, dissensions, divisions, ²¹envy, murder, inebriation, carousing, and similar things. About these things, I continue to preach to you, as I have preached to you: that those who act in this way shall not obtain the kingdom of God.

⁷For he is the Lord our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. ⁸If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts: ⁹as in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness, where your fathers tempted me; they tested me, though they had seen my works. ¹⁰For forty years, I was offended by that generation, and I said: These have always strayed in heart. ¹¹And these have not known my ways. So I swore in my wrath: They shall not enter into my rest.

³⁸For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor the present things, nor the future things, nor strength, ³⁹nor the heights, nor the depths, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

⁵For there is one God, and one mediator of God and of men, the man Christ Jesus,

¹⁵Be solicitous in the task of presenting yourself before God as a proven and unashamed worker who has handled the Word of Truth correctly.

⁴Truly, he has taken away our weaknesses, and he himself has carried our sorrows. And we thought of him as if he were a leper, or as if he had been struck by God and humiliated. ⁵But he himself was wounded because of our iniquities. He was bruised because of our wickedness. The discipline of our peace was upon him. And by his wounds, we are healed. ⁶We have all gone astray like sheep; each one has turned aside to his own way. And the Lord has placed all our iniquity upon him.

⁶Jesus said to him: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.

⁶Abram believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice.

⁴Truly, he has taken away our weaknesses, and he himself has carried our sorrows. And we thought of him as if he were a leper, or as if he had been struck by God and humiliated.