hardships

¹²Blessed is the man who suffers temptation. For when he has been proven, he shall receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.

³And not only that, but we also find glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation exercises patience, ⁴and patience leads to proving, yet truly proving leads to hope, ⁵but hope is not unfounded, because the love of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

¹³Everything is possible in him who has strengthened me.

³⁵Then who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or anguish? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or peril? Or persecution? Or the sword? ³⁶For it is as it has been written: “For your sake, we are being put to death all day long. We are being treated like sheep for the slaughter.” ³⁷But in all these things we overcome, because of him who has loved us. 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.

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.

⁹And he said to me: “My grace is sufficient for you. For virtue is perfected in weakness.” And so, willingly shall I glory in my weaknesses, so that the virtue of Christ may live within me. ¹⁰Because of this, I am pleased in my infirmity: in reproaches, in difficulties, in persecutions, in distresses, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am powerful.

²⁸Come to me, all you who labor and have been burdened, and I will refresh you.

⁹Behold, I am instructing you. Be strengthened, and be steadfast. Do not dread, and do not fear. For the Lord your God is with you in all things, wherever you may go.”

¹²If we suffer, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us.

¹In their tribulation, they will arise early to me. Come, let us return to the Lord.

¹⁰Since you have kept the word of my patient endurance, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation, which shall overcome the whole world in order to test those living upon the earth.

²²And when they had established priests for them in each church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, in whom they believed.

⁴He consoles us in all our tribulation, so that we too may be able to console those who are in any kind of distress, through the exhortation by which we also are being exhorted by God.