“The time will come when your people will sin against you (for there is no one who is sinless!) and you will be angry at them and deliver them over to their enemies, who will take them as prisoners to their land, whether far away or close by.

Your officials are rebels, they associate with thieves. All of them love bribery, and look for payoffs. They do not take up the cause of the orphan, or defend the rights of the widow.

Lord, you have always been fair whenever I have complained to you. However, I would like to speak with you about the disposition of justice. Why are wicked people successful? Why do all dishonest people have such easy lives?

Then the Lord spoke about these people. “They truly love to go astray. They cannot keep from running away from me. So I am not pleased with them. I will now call to mind the wrongs they have done and punish them for their sins.”

He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord really wants from you: He wants you to promote justice, to be faithful, and to live obediently before your God.

“Which one of you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go look for the one that is lost until he finds it?

Their bulls breed without fail; their cows calve and do not miscarry.

Is it not misfortune for the unjust, and disaster for those who work iniquity?

Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

Why do you people think it is unbelievable that God raises the dead?

For the kingdom of God is demonstrated not in idle talk but with power.

From the city the dying groan, and the wounded cry out for help, but God charges no one with wrongdoing.

For the Lord God is our sovereign protector. The Lord bestows favor and honor; he withholds no good thing from those who have integrity.

But it will not go well with the wicked, nor will they prolong their days like a shadow, because they do not stand in fear before God.

So the slaves of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Then where did the weeds come from?’

The one who reaps receives pay and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who reaps can rejoice together.

What did he mean by saying, ‘You will look for me but will not find me, and where I am you cannot come’?”

Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body” – but the immoral person sins against his own body.

If you know that he is righteous, you also know that everyone who practices righteousness has been fathered by him.

Edom will be a possession, Seir, his enemies, will also be a possession; but Israel will act valiantly.