Remind them to be submissive and obedient to powers and authorities, ready for every good work, to speak ill of no one, be peaceable and reasonable, showing complete gentleness toward all men. For once we too were thoughtless, disobedient, led astray, enslaved to desires and fantastic pleasures, spending our lives in vice and spite, hateful, hating each other. But when the kindness of God our savior was revealed, and his love for mankind, not because of any things we had done righteously, but through his own mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured abundantly upon us through Jesus Christ our savior, so that, justified by his grace, we may become heirs in the hope of life everlasting. This word is to be believed, and I want you to insist on these principles so that those who believe in God may concern themselves with good works. These are honorable and useful for mankind; but avoid silly speculations and genealogizing and contention and controversies about the law, since these are useless and vain. Banish a heretic after one, and then a second, warning; knowing that such a man is perverted and sinful, since he has condemned himself.
When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, make haste to come to me at Nicopolis, since that is where I have decided to spend the winter. Send Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way, trying to see that they lack for nothing. And let our own people also le^ to follow honorable trades, for their essential needs. They must not be unproductive.
All who are with me send you greetings. Greet all who are our friends in the faith.
The grace of God be with you all.
The Letter to Philemon
1PAUL, THE PRISONER OF CHRIST JEsus, and Timothy our brother; to Philemon, our beloved fellow worker, and Apphia, our sister, and Archip- pus, our fellow soldier, and to the church which is in your house: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God at all times as I make mention of you in my prayers, when I hear of the love and faith you have for the Lord Jesus and for all the saints. I pray that your sharing in the faith may work toward understanding all the good we have in Christ; since I took much joy and comfort in your love, because, brother, the hearts of the saints were refreshed through you.
I, therefore, though I have full authority in Christ to order you to do your duty, because of our love prefer to entreat you to it, though I am what I am, Paul, ambassador, and now prisoner, of Christ Jesus. My entreaty concerns my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become while in my chains; who once was worthless to you, but now is of great worth to you and to me. Now I send him, the child of my heart, to you. I would have wanted to keep him with me, to serve me for your sake in my bondage for the gospel; but I did not wish to do anything without your will, so that your good deed would be done not by constraint but voluntarily. Perhaps this is why he was taken away for a while, so that you could have him back for always, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother greatly beloved by me but so much the more by you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If, then, you hold me to be your partner, welcome him as you would me. If he did you any injury or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, write it in my own hand: I will pay. Not to mention that you owe me your very self. Yes, brother, let me have some good of you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ.
Confident in your obedience, I write you this, knowing that you will do even more than I ask. At the same time, make ready a guest room for me, since I hope that, because of your prayers, you will be granted a visit from me.
Epaphras, my fellow prisoner, greets you in Christ Jesus, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirits.
The Letter to the Hebrews
IGOD, WHO IN ANCIENT TIME SPOKE to our fathers in many and various ways through the prophets, has now in these last days spoken to us through his son, whom he made the heir to all things and through whom he also created the ages. He is the gleam of his glory and the representation of his nature, he carries all things by his word of power; and when he had caused purification from sins, he took his seat on the right hand of the majesty, in the highest; thus proving to be greater than the angels by as much as the name he inherited is more exalted than theirs.
For to which of the angels did God ever say: You are my son, this day I begot you? And again: I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me?
And when, once more, he introduces his firstborn to the world, he says: And let all the angels of God fall do^ and worship him; and as to the angels he says: He who makes his angels into winds, and his servants into flame of fire. But to the son he says: Your throne, О God, is forever and ever, and the scepter of your uprightness is the scepter of his Kingdom. You love righteousness and hate lawlessness; because of which, God, your God, anointed you with the oil of exultation, beyond your companions. And: In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the works of your hands are the heavens. They will perish, but you endure. And they all will be outworn like a garment, and like a mantle you will roll them up, and like a garment they will be changed; but you are the s^e, and your years will not give out.
But to which of the angels did he ever say: Sit on my right, so that I may make your enemies a footstool for your feet? Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth into service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
11 Because of this, we must all the more strongly hold to what we have heard, lest we slip away from it. For if the word spoken by the angels proved certain, and every transgression and disobedience got its just punishment, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? This began by being proclaimed by the Lord, and was confirmed for us by those who heard it, with God adding his testimony by signs and portents and miracles and apportionments of the Holy Spirit, according to his will.
For he did not make the world to come, of which we are speaking, subject to angels. To this someone bore testimony at one point, saying: What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you consider him? You have made him a little lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor. And you set him over the works of your hands. You have subjected all things beneath his feet. In subjecting everything he left nothing that was not to be subjected. But now we do not yet see everything subjected to him; but we do see him who was a little below the angels, Jesus, through the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God he should taste of death for the sake of all. For it was right for him, by whom and for whom all things are, to lead many sons to glory and make perfect the author of their salvation through suffering. For the consecrator and the consecrated are from a single source; for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying: I will announce your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will hymn you. And again: I will put my trust in him. And again: Here am I and my children, whom God gave me.
Since, then, his children share his flesh and blood, so likewise he too partakes of theirs, so as by his death to abolish the one who has power over death, that is, the devil; and set free those who through fear of death had been condemned to slavery all their lives. For he is not, surely, concerned with angels, but with the seed of Abraham. Hence he needed to be made like his brothers in every way, to be merciful and the faithful high priest for all that concerns God, to expiate the sins of the people; for by the fact that he himself suffered through trial, he can help those who undergo trial.