multiculturalism

²⁹When the Lord your God will have abolished before your face the nations, which you shall enter so as to possess them, and when you will possess them and live in their land, ³⁰be careful that you do not imitate them, after they have been overturned at your arrival, and that you do not seek their ceremonies, saying: ‘Just as these nations have worshipped their gods, so also will I worship.’ ³¹You shall not act in like manner toward the Lord your God. For they have done to their gods all the abominations that the Lord spurns, offering their sons and daughters, and burning them with fire. ³²What I command to you, this only shall you do, for the Lord. You may neither add nor subtract anything.”

²⁰and to reveal to the people the ceremonies, and the rituals of worship, and the way by which they should progress, and the work that they should do.

¹²And there is no salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, by which it is necessary for us to be saved.”

¹²And you shall know that I am the Lord. For you have not walked in my precepts, and you have not accomplished my judgments. Instead, you have acted in accord with the judgments of the Gentiles, who are all around you.”

¹Alleluia. All nations, praise the Lord. All peoples, praise him. ²For his mercy has been confirmed over us. And the truth of the Lord remains for all eternity.

¹⁶But because you are lukewarm and are neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth.

²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know. For salvation is from the Jews.

¹⁶For they cast aside my judgments, and they did not walk in my precepts, and they violated my Sabbaths. For their heart went after idols.

¹And so I beg you, first of all, to make supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings for all men, ²for kings, and for all who are in high places, so that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all piety and chastity. ³For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴who wants all men to be saved and to arrive at an acknowledgment of the truth. ⁵For there is one God, and one mediator of God and of men, the man Christ Jesus, ⁶who gave himself as a redemption for all, as a testimony in its proper time.

²⁶And he has made, out of one, every family of man: to live upon the face of the entire earth, determining the appointed seasons and the limits of their habitation,

¹⁸And Jesus, drawing near, spoke to them, saying: “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹Therefore, go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰teaching them to observe all that I have ever commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the consummation of the age.”

⁹After these things, I saw a great crowd, which no one could number, from all the nations and tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and in sight of the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰And they cried out, with a great voice, saying: “Salvation is from our God, who sits upon the throne, and from the Lamb.”

¹¹where there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, servant nor free. Instead, Christ is everything, in everyone.

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. ⁴Follow the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and listen to his voice. Him shall you serve, and to him shall you cling. ⁵But that prophet or forger of dreams shall be put to death. For he has spoken so as to turn you away from the Lord your God, who led you away from the land of Egypt and who redeemed you from the house of servitude, and so as to cause you to wander from the way that the Lord your God has entrusted to you. And so shall you remove the evil from your midst. ⁶If your brother, the son of your mother, or your own son or daughter, or your wife who is in your bosom, or your friend, whom you love like your own soul, were willing to persuade you secretly, saying: ‘Let us go, and serve foreign gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known,

⁵Jesus sent these twelve, instructing them, saying: “Do not travel by the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter into the city of the Samaritans, ⁶but instead go to the sheep who have fallen away from the house of Israel.