Bible in 90 Days

1 Long ago God spoke in many different ways to our fathers through the prophets, in visions, dreams, and even face to face,^[a] telling them little by little about his plans.

² But now in these days he has spoken to us through his Son to whom he has given everything and through whom he made the world and everything there is.

³ God’s Son shines out with God’s glory, and all that God’s Son is and does marks him as God. He regulates the universe by the mighty power of his command. He is the one who died to cleanse us and clear our record of all sin, and then sat down in highest honor beside the great God of heaven.

⁴ Thus he became far greater than the angels, as proved by the fact that his name “Son of God,” which was passed on to him from his Father, is far greater than the names and titles of the angels. ^5-6 For God never said to any angel, “You are my Son, and today I have given you the honor that goes with that name.”^[b] But God said it about Jesus. Another time he said, “I am his Father and he is my Son.” And still another time—when his firstborn Son came to earth—God said, “Let all the angels of God worship him.”

⁷ God speaks of his angels as messengers swift as the wind and as servants made of flaming fire; ⁸ but of his Son he says, “Your Kingdom, O God, will last forever and ever; its commands are always just and right. ⁹ You love right and hate wrong; so God, even your God, has poured out more gladness upon you than on anyone else.”

¹⁰ God also called him “Lord” when he said, “Lord, in the beginning you made the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. ¹¹ They will disappear into nothingness, but you will remain forever. They will become worn out like old clothes, ¹² and some day you will fold them up and replace them. But you yourself will never change, and your years will never end.”

¹³ And did God ever say to an angel, as he does to his Son, “Sit here beside me in honor until I crush all your enemies beneath your feet”?

¹⁴ No, for the angels are only spirit-messengers sent out to help and care for those who are to receive his salvation.

2 So we must listen very carefully to the truths we have heard, or we may drift away from them. ² For since the messages from angels have always proved true and people have always been punished for disobeying them, ³ what makes us think that we can escape if we are indifferent to this great salvation announced by the Lord Jesus himself and passed on to us by those who heard him speak?

⁴ God always has shown us that these messages are true by signs and wonders and various miracles and by giving certain special abilities from the Holy Spirit to those who believe; yes, God has assigned such gifts to each of us.

⁵ And the future world we are talking about will not be controlled by angels. ⁶ No, for in the book of Psalms David says to God, “What is mere man that you are so concerned about him? And who is this Son of Man you honor so highly? ⁷ For though you made him lower than the angels for a little while, now you have crowned him with glory and honor. ⁸ And you have put him in complete charge of everything there is. Nothing is left out.”

We have not yet seen all of this take place, ⁹ but we do see Jesus—who for a while was a little lower than the angels—crowned now by God with glory and honor because he suffered death for us. Yes, because of God’s great kindness, Jesus tasted death for everyone in all the world.

¹⁰ And it was right and proper that God, who made everything for his own glory, should allow Jesus to suffer, for in doing this he was bringing vast multitudes of God’s people to heaven; for his suffering made Jesus a perfect Leader, one fit to bring them into their salvation.

¹¹ We who have been made holy by Jesus, now have the same Father he has. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers. ¹² For he says in the book of Psalms, “I will talk to my brothers about God my Father, and together we will sing his praises.” ¹³ At another time he said, “I will put my trust in God along with my brothers.” And at still another time, “See, here am I and the children God gave me.”

¹⁴ Since we, God’s children, are human beings—made of flesh and blood—he became flesh and blood too by being born in human form; for only as a human being could he die and in dying break the power of the devil who had the power of death. ¹⁵ Only in that way could he deliver those who through fear of death have been living all their lives as slaves to constant dread.

¹⁶ We all know he did not come as an angel but as a human being—yes, a Jew. ¹⁷ And it was necessary for Jesus to be like us, his brothers, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God, a Priest who would be both merciful to us and faithful to God in dealing with the sins of the people. ¹⁸ For since he himself has now been through suffering and temptation, he knows what it is like when we suffer and are tempted, and he is wonderfully able to help us.

3 Therefore, dear brothers whom God has set apart for himself—you who are chosen for heaven—I want you to think now about this Jesus who is God’s Messenger and the High Priest of our faith.

² For Jesus was faithful to God who appointed him High Priest, just as Moses also faithfully served in God’s house. ³ But Jesus has far more glory than Moses, just as a man who builds a fine house gets more praise than his house does. ⁴ And many people can build houses, but only God made everything.

⁵ Well, Moses did a fine job working in God’s house, but he was only a servant; and his work was mostly to illustrate and suggest those things that would happen later on. ⁶ But Christ, God’s faithful Son, is in complete charge of God’s house. And we Christians are God’s house—he lives in us!—if we keep up our courage firm to the end, and our joy and our trust in the Lord.

^7-8 And since Christ is so much superior, the Holy Spirit warns us to listen to him, to be careful to hear his voice today and not let our hearts become set against him, as the people of Israel did. They steeled themselves against his love and complained against him in the desert while he was testing them. ⁹ But God was patient with them forty years, though they tried his patience sorely; he kept right on doing his mighty miracles for them to see. ¹⁰ “But,” God says, “I was very angry with them, for their hearts were always looking somewhere else instead of up to me, and they never found the paths I wanted them to follow.”

¹¹ Then God, full of this anger against them, bound himself with an oath that he would never let them come to his place of rest.

¹² Beware then of your own hearts, dear brothers, lest you find that they, too, are evil and unbelieving and are leading you away from the living God. ¹³ Speak to each other about these things every day while there is still time so that none of you will become hardened against God, being blinded by the glamor^[c] of sin. ¹⁴ For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as we did when we first became Christians, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.

¹⁵ But now is the time. Never forget the warning, “Today if you hear God’s voice speaking to you, do not harden your hearts against him, as the people of Israel did when they rebelled against him in the desert.”

¹⁶ And who were those people I speak of, who heard God’s voice speaking to them but then rebelled against him? They were the ones who came out of Egypt with Moses their leader. ¹⁷ And who was it who made God angry for all those forty years? These same people who sinned and as a result died in the wilderness. ¹⁸ And to whom was God speaking when he swore with an oath that they could never go into the land he had promised his people? He was speaking to all those who disobeyed him. ¹⁹ And why couldn’t they go in? Because they didn’t trust him.

4 Although God’s promise still stands—his promise that all may enter his place of rest—we ought to tremble with fear because some of you may be on the verge of failing to get there after all. ² For this wonderful news—the message that God wants to save us—has been given to us just as it was to those who lived in the time of Moses. But it didn’t do them any good because they didn’t believe it. They didn’t mix it with faith. ³ For only we who believe God can enter into his place of rest. He has said, “I have sworn in my anger that those who don’t believe me will never get in,” even though he has been ready and waiting for them since the world began.

⁴ We know he is ready and waiting because it is written that God rested on the seventh day of creation, having finished all that he had planned to make.

⁵ Even so they didn’t get in, for God finally said, “They shall never enter my rest.” ⁶ Yet the promise remains and some get in—but not those who had the first chance, for they disobeyed God and failed to enter.

⁷ But he has set another time for coming in, and that time is now. He announced this through King David long years after man’s first failure to enter, saying in the words already quoted, “Today when you hear him calling, do not harden your hearts against him.”

⁸ This new place of rest he is talking about does not mean the land of Israel that Joshua led them into. If that were what God meant, he would not have spoken long afterwards about “today” being the time to get in. ⁹ So there is a full complete rest still waiting for the people of God. ¹⁰ Christ has already entered there. He is resting from his work, just as God did after the creation. ¹¹ Let us do our best to go into that place of rest, too, being careful not to disobey God as the children of Israel did, thus failing to get in.

¹² For whatever God says to us is full of living power: it is sharper than the sharpest dagger, cutting swift and deep into our innermost thoughts and desires with all their parts, exposing us for what we really are. ¹³ He knows about everyone, everywhere. Everything about us is bare and wide open to the all-seeing eyes of our living God; nothing can be hidden from him to whom we must explain all that we have done.

¹⁴ But Jesus the Son of God is our great High Priest who has gone to heaven itself to help us; therefore let us never stop trusting him. ¹⁵ This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses since he had the same temptations we do, though he never once gave way to them and sinned. ¹⁶ So let us come boldly to the very throne of God and stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need.

5 ^1-3 The Jewish high priest is merely a man like anyone else, but he is chosen to speak for all other men in their dealings with God. He presents their gifts to God and offers to him the blood of animals that are sacrificed to cover the sins of the people and his own sins too. And because he is a man, he can deal gently with other men, though they are foolish and ignorant, for he, too, is surrounded with the same temptations and understands their problems very well.

⁴ Another thing to remember is that no one can be a high priest just because he wants to be. He has to be called by God for this work in the same way God chose Aaron.

⁵ That is why Christ did not elect himself to the honor of being High Priest; no, he was chosen by God. God said to him, “My Son, today I have honored you.”^{[d] 6} And another time God said to him, “You have been chosen to be a priest forever, with the same rank as Melchizedek.”

⁷ Yet while Christ was here on earth he pleaded with God, praying with tears and agony of soul to the only one who would save him from premature^[e] death. And God heard his prayers because of his strong desire to obey God at all times.

⁸ And even though Jesus was God’s Son, he had to learn from experience what it was like to obey when obeying meant suffering. ⁹ It was after he had proved himself perfect in this experience that Jesus became the Giver of eternal salvation to all those who obey him. ¹⁰ For remember that God has chosen him to be a High Priest with the same rank as Melchizedek.

¹¹ There is much more I would like to say along these lines, but you don’t seem to listen, so it’s hard to make you understand.

^12-13 You have been Christians a long time now, and you ought to be teaching others, but instead you have dropped back to the place where you need someone to teach you all over again the very first principles in God’s Word. You are like babies who can drink only milk, not old enough for solid food. And when a person is still living on milk it shows he isn’t very far along in the Christian life, and doesn’t know much about the difference between right and wrong. He is still a baby Christian! ¹⁴ You will never be able to eat solid spiritual food and understand the deeper things of God’s Word until you become better Christians and learn right from wrong by practicing doing right.

6 Let us stop going over the same old ground again and again, always teaching those first lessons about Christ. Let us go on instead to other things and become mature in our understanding, as strong Christians ought to be. Surely we don’t need to speak further about the foolishness of trying to be saved by being good, or about the necessity of faith in God; ² you don’t need further instruction about baptism and spiritual gifts^[f] and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

³ The Lord willing, we will go on now to other things.

⁴ There is no use trying to bring you back to the Lord again if you have once understood the Good News and tasted for yourself the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵ and know how good the Word of God is, and felt the mighty powers of the world to come, ⁶ and then have turned against God. You cannot bring yourself to repent again if you have nailed the Son of God to the cross again by rejecting him, holding him up to mocking and to public shame.

⁷ When a farmer’s land has had many showers upon it and good crops come up, that land has experienced God’s blessing upon it. ⁸ But if it keeps on having crops of thistles and thorns, the land is considered no good and is ready for condemnation and burning off.

⁹ Dear friends, even though I am talking like this I really don’t believe that what I am saying applies to you. I am confident you are producing the good fruit that comes along with your salvation. ¹⁰ For God is not unfair. How can he forget your hard work for him, or forget the way you used to show your love for him—and still do—by helping his children? ¹¹ And we are anxious that you keep right on loving others as long as life lasts, so that you will get your full reward.

¹² Then, knowing what lies ahead for you, you won’t become bored with being a Christian nor become spiritually dull and indifferent, but you will be anxious to follow the example of those who receive all that God has promised them because of their strong faith and patience.

¹³ For instance, there was God’s promise to Abraham: God took an oath in his own name, since there was no one greater to swear by, ¹⁴ that he would bless Abraham again and again, and give him a son and make him the father of a great nation of people. ¹⁵ Then Abraham waited patiently until finally God gave him a son, Isaac, just as he had promised.

¹⁶ When a man takes an oath, he is calling upon someone greater than himself to force him to do what he has promised or to punish him if he later refuses to do it; the oath ends all argument about it. ¹⁷ God also bound himself with an oath, so that those he promised to help would be perfectly sure and never need to wonder whether he might change his plans.

¹⁸ He has given us both his promise and his oath, two things we can completely count on, for it is impossible for God to tell a lie. Now all those who flee to him to save them can take new courage when they hear such assurances from God; now they can know without doubt that he will give them the salvation he has promised them.

¹⁹ This certain hope of being saved is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls, connecting us with God himself behind the sacred curtains of heaven, ²⁰ where Christ has gone ahead to plead for us from his position as our High Priest,^[g] with the honor and rank of Melchizedek.

7 This Melchizedek was king of the city of Salem and also a priest of the Most High God. When Abraham was returning home after winning a great battle against many kings, Melchizedek met him and blessed him; ² then Abraham took a tenth of all he had won in the battle and gave it to Melchizedek.

Melchizedek’s name means “Justice,” so he is the King of Justice; and he is also the King of Peace because of the name of his city, Salem, which means “Peace.” ³ Melchizedek had no father or mother^[h] and there is no record of any of his ancestors. He was never born and he never died but his life is like that of the Son of God—a priest forever.

⁴ See then how great this Melchizedek is:

(a) Even Abraham, the first and most honored of all God’s chosen people, gave Melchizedek a tenth of the spoils he took from the kings he had been fighting. ⁵ One could understand why Abraham would do this if Melchizedek had been a Jewish priest, for later on God’s people were required by law to give gifts to help their priests because the priests were their relatives. ⁶ But Melchizedek was not a relative, and yet Abraham paid him.

(b) Melchizedek placed a blessing upon mighty Abraham, ⁷ and as everyone knows, a person who has the power to bless is always greater than the person he blesses.

⁸ (c) The Jewish priests, though mortal, received tithes; but we are told that Melchizedek lives on.

⁹ (d) One might even say that Levi himself (the ancestor of all Jewish priests, of all who receive tithes), paid tithes to Melchizedek through Abraham. ¹⁰ For although Levi wasn’t born yet, the seed from which he came was in Abraham when Abraham paid the tithes to Melchizedek.

¹¹ (e) If the Jewish priests and their laws had been able to save us, why then did God need to send Christ as a priest with the rank of Melchizedek, instead of sending someone with the rank of Aaron—the same rank all other priests had?

^12-14 And when God sends a new kind of priest, his law must be changed to permit it. As we all know, Christ did not belong to the priest-tribe of Levi, but came from the tribe of Judah, which had not been chosen for priesthood; Moses had never given them that work.

¹⁵ So we can plainly see that God’s method changed, for Christ, the new High Priest who came with the rank of Melchizedek, ¹⁶ did not become a priest by meeting the old requirement of belonging to the tribe of Levi, but on the basis of power flowing from a life that cannot end. ¹⁷ And the psalmist points this out when he says of Christ, “You are a priest forever with the rank of Melchizedek.”

¹⁸ Yes, the old system of priesthood based on family lines was canceled because it didn’t work. It was weak and useless for saving people. ¹⁹ It never made anyone really right with God. But now we have a far better hope, for Christ makes us acceptable to God, and now we may draw near to him.

²⁰ God took an oath that Christ would always be a Priest, ²¹ although he never said that of other priests. Only to Christ he said, “The Lord has sworn and will never change his mind: You are a Priest forever, with the rank of Melchizedek.” ²² Because of God’s oath, Christ can guarantee forever the success of this new and better arrangement.

²³ Under the old arrangement there had to be many priests so that when the older ones died off, the system could still be carried on by others who took their places.

²⁴ But Jesus lives forever and continues to be a Priest so that no one else is needed. ²⁵ He is able to save completely all who come to God through him. Since he will live forever, he will always be there to remind God that he has paid for their sins with his blood.

²⁶ He is, therefore, exactly the kind of High Priest we need; for he is holy and blameless, unstained by sin, undefiled by sinners, and to him has been given the place of honor in heaven. ²⁷ He never needs the daily blood of animal sacrifices, as other priests did, to cover over first their own sins and then the sins of the people; for he finished all sacrifices, once and for all, when he sacrificed himself on the cross. ²⁸ Under the old system, even the high priests were weak and sinful men who could not keep from doing wrong, but later God appointed by his oath his Son who is perfect forever.

8 What we are saying is this: Christ, whose priesthood we have just described, is our High Priest and is in heaven at the place of greatest honor next to God himself. ² He ministers in the temple in heaven, the true place of worship built by the Lord and not by human hands.

³ And since every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, Christ must make an offering too. ⁴ The sacrifice he offers is far better than those offered by the earthly priests. (But even so, if he were here on earth he wouldn’t even be permitted to be a priest because down here the priests still follow the old Jewish system of sacrifices.) ⁵ Their work is connected with a mere earthly model of the real tabernacle in heaven; for when Moses was getting ready to build the tabernacle, God warned him to follow exactly the pattern of the heavenly tabernacle as shown to him on Mount Sinai. ⁶ But Christ, as a Minister in heaven, has been rewarded with a far more important work than those who serve under the old laws because the new agreement that he passes on to us from God contains far more wonderful promises.

⁷ The old agreement didn’t even work. If it had, there would have been no need for another to replace it. ⁸ But God himself found fault with the old one, for he said, “The day will come when I will make a new agreement with the people of Israel and the people of Judah. ⁹ This new agreement will not be like the old one I gave to their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; they did not keep their part in that agreement, so I had to cancel it. ¹⁰ But this is the new agreement I will make with the people of Israel, says the Lord: I will write my laws in their minds so that they will know what I want them to do without my even telling them, and these laws will be in their hearts so that they will want to obey them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. ¹¹ And no one then will need to speak to his friend or neighbor or brother, saying, ‘You, too, should know the Lord,’ because everyone, great and small, will know me already. ¹² And I will be merciful to them in their wrongdoings, and I will remember their sins no more.”

¹³ God speaks of these new promises, of this new agreement, as taking the place of the old one; for the old one is out of date now and has been put aside forever.

9 ^1-2 Now in that first agreement between God and his people there were rules for worship and there was a sacred tent down here on earth. Inside this place of worship there were two rooms. The first one contained the golden candlestick and a table with special loaves of holy bread upon it; this part was called the Holy Place. ³ Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was a room called the Holy of Holies. ⁴ In that room there were a golden incense-altar and the golden chest, called the ark of the covenant, completely covered on all sides with pure gold. Inside the ark were the tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments written on them, and a golden jar with some manna in it, and Aaron’s wooden cane that budded. ⁵ Above the golden chest were statues of angels called the cherubim—the guardians of God’s glory—with their wings stretched out over the ark’s golden cover, called the mercy seat. But enough of such details.

⁶ Well, when all was ready, the priests went in and out of the first room whenever they wanted to, doing their work. ⁷ But only the high priest went into the inner room, and then only once a year, all alone, and always with blood that he sprinkled on the mercy seat as an offering to God to cover his own mistakes and sins and the mistakes and sins of all the people.

⁸ And the Holy Spirit uses all this to point out to us that under the old system the common people could not go into the Holy of Holies as long as the outer room and the entire system it represents were still in use.

⁹ This has an important lesson for us today. For under the old system, gifts and sacrifices were offered, but these failed to cleanse the hearts of the people who brought them. ¹⁰ For the old system dealt only with certain rituals—what foods to eat and drink, rules for washing themselves, and rules about this and that. The people had to keep these rules to tide them over until Christ came with God’s new and better way.

¹¹ He came as High Priest of this better system that we now have. He went into that greater, perfect tabernacle in heaven, not made by men nor part of this world, ¹² and once for all took blood into that inner room, the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on the mercy seat; but it was not the blood of goats and calves. No, he took his own blood, and with it he, by himself, made sure of our eternal salvation.

¹³ And if under the old system the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of young cows could cleanse men’s bodies from sin, ¹⁴ just think how much more surely the blood of Christ will transform our lives and hearts. His sacrifice frees us from the worry of having to obey the old rules and makes us want to serve the living God. For by the help of the eternal Holy Spirit, Christ willingly gave himself to God to die for our sins—he being perfect, without a single sin or fault. ¹⁵ Christ came with this new agreement so that all who are invited may come and have forever all the wonders God has promised them. For Christ died to rescue them from the penalty of the sins they had committed while still under that old system.

¹⁶ Now, if someone dies and leaves a will—a list of things to be given away to certain people when he dies—no one gets anything until it is proved that the person who wrote the will is dead. ¹⁷ The will goes into effect only after the death of the person who wrote it. While he is still alive no one can use it to get any of those things he has promised them.

¹⁸ That is why blood was sprinkled as proof of Christ’s death^[i] before even the first agreement could go into effect. ¹⁹ For after Moses had given the people all of God’s laws, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, and sprinkled the blood over the book of God’s laws and over all the people, using branches of hyssop bushes and scarlet wool to sprinkle with. ²⁰ Then he said, “This is the blood that marks the beginning of the agreement between you and God, the agreement God commanded me to make with you.” ²¹ And in the same way he sprinkled blood on the sacred tent and on whatever instruments were used for worship. ²² In fact we can say that under the old agreement almost everything was cleansed by sprinkling it with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

²³ That is why the sacred tent down here on earth and everything in it—all copied from things in heaven—all had to be made pure by Moses in this way, by being sprinkled with the blood of animals. But the real things in heaven, of which these down here are copies, were made pure with far more precious offerings.

²⁴ For Christ has entered into heaven itself to appear now before God as our Friend. It was not in the earthly place of worship that he did this, for that was merely a copy of the real temple in heaven. ²⁵ Nor has he offered himself again and again, as the high priest down here on earth offers animal blood in the Holy of Holies each year. ²⁶ If that had been necessary, then he would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But no! He came once for all, at the end of the age, to put away the power of sin forever by dying for us.

²⁷ And just as it is destined that men die only once, and after that comes judgment, ²⁸ so also Christ died only once as an offering for the sins of many people; and he will come again, but not to deal again with our sins.

This time he will come bringing salvation to all those who are eagerly and patiently waiting for him.

10 The old system of Jewish laws gave only a dim foretaste of the good things Christ would do for us. The sacrifices under the old system were repeated again and again, year after year, but even so they could never save those who lived under their rules. ² If they could have, one offering would have been enough; the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all and their feeling of guilt would be gone.

³ But just the opposite happened: those yearly sacrifices reminded them of their disobedience and guilt instead of relieving their minds. ⁴ For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats really to take away sins.^[j]

⁵ That is why Christ said as he came into the world, “O God, the blood of bulls and goats cannot satisfy you, so you have made ready this body of mine for me to lay as a sacrifice upon your altar. ⁶ You were not satisfied with the animal sacrifices, slain and burnt before you as offerings for sin. ⁷ Then I said, ‘See, I have come to do your will, to lay down my life, just as the Scriptures said that I would.’”

⁸ After Christ said this about not being satisfied with the various sacrifices and offerings required under the old system, ⁹ he then added, “Here I am. I have come to give my life.”

He cancels the first system in favor of a far better one. ¹⁰ Under this new plan we have been forgiven and made clean by Christ’s dying for us once and for all.

¹¹ Under the old agreement the priests stood before the altar day after day offering sacrifices that could never take away our sins. ¹² But Christ gave himself to God for our sins as one sacrifice for all time and then sat down in the place of highest honor at God’s right hand, ¹³ waiting for his enemies to be laid under his feet. ¹⁴ For by that one offering he made forever perfect in the sight of God all those whom he is making holy.

¹⁵ And the Holy Spirit testifies that this is so, for he has said, ¹⁶ “This is the agreement I will make with the people of Israel, though they broke their first agreement: I will write my laws into their minds so that they will always know my will, and I will put my laws in their hearts so that they will want to obey them.” ¹⁷ And then he adds, “I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.”

¹⁸ Now, when sins have once been forever forgiven and forgotten, there is no need to offer more sacrifices to get rid of them.

¹⁹ And so, dear brothers, now we may walk right into the very Holy of Holies, where God is, because of the blood of Jesus. ²⁰ This is the fresh, new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us by tearing the curtain—his human body—to let us into the holy presence of God.

²¹ And since this great High Priest of ours rules over God’s household, ²² let us go right in to God himself, with true hearts fully trusting him to receive us because we have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean and because our bodies have been washed with pure water.

²³ Now we can look forward to the salvation God has promised us. There is no longer any room for doubt, and we can tell others that salvation is ours, for there is no question that he will do what he says.

²⁴ In response to all he has done for us, let us outdo each other in being helpful and kind to each other and in doing good.

²⁵ Let us not neglect our church meetings, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.

²⁶ If anyone sins deliberately by rejecting the Savior after knowing the truth of forgiveness, this sin is not covered by Christ’s death; there is no way to get rid of it. ²⁷ There will be nothing to look forward to but the terrible punishment of God’s awful anger, which will consume all his enemies. ²⁸ A man who refused to obey the laws given by Moses was killed without mercy if there were two or three witnesses to his sin. ²⁹ Think how much more terrible the punishment will be for those who have trampled underfoot the Son of God and treated his cleansing blood as though it were common and unhallowed, and insulted and outraged the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to his people.

³⁰ For we know him who said, “Justice belongs to me; I will repay them”; who also said, “The Lord himself will handle these cases.” ³¹ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

³² Don’t ever forget those wonderful days when you first learned about Christ. Remember how you kept right on with the Lord even though it meant terrible suffering. ³³ Sometimes you were laughed at and beaten, and sometimes you watched and sympathized with others suffering the same things. ³⁴ You suffered with those thrown into jail, and you were actually joyful when all you owned was taken from you, knowing that better things were awaiting you in heaven, things that would be yours forever.

³⁵ Do not let this happy trust in the Lord die away, no matter what happens. Remember your reward! ³⁶ You need to keep on patiently doing God’s will if you want him to do for you all that he has promised. ³⁷ His coming will not be delayed much longer. ³⁸ And those whose faith has made them good in God’s sight must live by faith, trusting him in everything. Otherwise, if they shrink back, God will have no pleasure in them.

³⁹ But we have never turned our backs on God and sealed our fate. No, our faith in him assures our souls’ salvation.

11 What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead. ² Men of God in days of old were famous for their faith.

³ By faith—by believing God—we know that the world and the stars—in fact, all things—were made at God’s command; and that they were all made from things that can’t be seen.^[k]

⁴ It was by faith that Abel obeyed God and brought an offering that pleased God more than Cain’s offering did. God accepted Abel and proved it by accepting his gift; and though Abel is long dead, we can still learn lessons from him about trusting God.

⁵ Enoch trusted God too, and that is why God took him away to heaven without dying; suddenly he was gone because God took him. Before this happened God had said^[l] how pleased he was with Enoch. ⁶ You can never please God without faith, without depending on him. Anyone who wants to come to God must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely look for him.

⁷ Noah was another who trusted God. When he heard God’s warning about the future, Noah believed him even though there was then no sign of a flood, and wasting no time, he built the ark and saved his family. Noah’s belief in God was in direct contrast to the sin and disbelief of the rest of the world—which refused to obey—and because of his faith he became one of those whom God has accepted.

⁸ Abraham trusted God, and when God told him to leave home and go far away to another land that he promised to give him, Abraham obeyed. Away he went, not even knowing where he was going. ⁹ And even when he reached God’s promised land, he lived in tents like a mere visitor as did Isaac and Jacob, to whom God gave the same promise. ¹⁰ Abraham did this because he was confidently waiting for God to bring him to that strong heavenly city whose designer and builder is God.

¹¹ Sarah, too, had faith, and because of this she was able to become a mother in spite of her old age, for she realized that God, who gave her his promise, would certainly do what he said. ¹² And so a whole nation came from Abraham, who was too old to have even one child—a nation with so many millions of people that, like the stars of the sky and the sand on the ocean shores, there is no way to count them.

¹³ These men of faith I have mentioned died without ever receiving all that God had promised them; but they saw it all awaiting them on ahead and were glad, for they agreed that this earth was not their real home but that they were just strangers visiting down here. ¹⁴ And quite obviously when they talked like that, they were looking forward to their real home in heaven.

¹⁵ If they had wanted to, they could have gone back to the good things of this world. ¹⁶ But they didn’t want to. They were living for heaven. And now God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has made a heavenly city for them.

¹⁷ While God was testing him, Abraham still trusted in God and his promises, and so he offered up his son Isaac and was ready to slay him on the altar of sacrifice; ¹⁸ yes, to slay even Isaac, through whom God had promised to give Abraham a whole nation of descendants!

¹⁹ He believed that if Isaac died God would bring him back to life again; and that is just about what happened, for as far as Abraham was concerned, Isaac was doomed to death, but he came back again alive! ²⁰ It was by faith that Isaac knew God would give future blessings to his two sons, Jacob and Esau.

²¹ By faith Jacob, when he was old and dying, blessed each of Joseph’s two sons as he stood and prayed, leaning on the top of his cane.

²² And it was by faith that Joseph, as he neared the end of his life, confidently spoke of God bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt; and he was so sure of it that he made them promise to carry his bones with them when they left!

²³ Moses’ parents had faith too. When they saw that God had given them an unusual child, they trusted that God would save him from the death the king commanded, and they hid him for three months and were not afraid.

^24-25 It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be treated as the grandson of the king, but chose to share ill-treatment with God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. ²⁶ He thought that it was better to suffer for the promised Christ than to own all the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking forward to the great reward that God would give him. ²⁷ And it was because he trusted God that he left the land of Egypt and wasn’t afraid of the king’s anger. Moses kept right on going; it seemed as though he could see God right there with him. ²⁸ And it was because he believed God would save his people that he commanded them to kill a lamb as God had told them to and sprinkle the blood on the doorposts of their homes so that God’s terrible Angel of Death could not touch the oldest child in those homes as he did among the Egyptians.

²⁹ The people of Israel trusted God and went right through the Red Sea as though they were on dry ground. But when the Egyptians chasing them tried it, they all were drowned.

³⁰ It was faith that brought the walls of Jericho tumbling down after the people of Israel had walked around them seven days as God had commanded them. ³¹ By faith—because she believed in God and his power—Rahab the harlot did not die with all the others in her city when they refused to obey God, for she gave a friendly welcome to the spies.

³² Well, how much more do I need to say? It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and David and Samuel and all the other prophets. ³³ These people all trusted God and as a result won battles, overthrew kingdoms, ruled their people well, and received what God had promised them; they were kept from harm in a den of lions ³⁴ and in a fiery furnace. Some, through their faith, escaped death by the sword. Some were made strong again after they had been weak or sick. Others were given great power in battle; they made whole armies turn and run away. ³⁵ And some women, through faith, received their loved ones back again from death. But others trusted God and were beaten to death, preferring to die rather than turn from God and be free—trusting that they would rise to a better life afterwards.

³⁶ Some were laughed at and their backs cut open with whips, and others were chained in dungeons. ^37-38 Some died by stoning and some by being sawed in two; others were promised freedom if they would renounce their faith, then were killed with the sword. Some went about in skins of sheep and goats, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in dens and caves. They were hungry and sick and ill-treated—too good for this world. ³⁹ And these men of faith, though they trusted God and won his approval, none of them received all that God had promised them; ⁴⁰ for God wanted them to wait and share the even better rewards that were prepared for us.

12 Since we have such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down or holds us back, and especially those sins that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up; and let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us.

² Keep your eyes on Jesus, our leader and instructor. He was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew would be his afterwards; and now he sits in the place of honor by the throne of God.

³ If you want to keep from becoming fainthearted and weary, think about his patience as sinful men did such terrible things to him. ⁴ After all, you have never yet struggled against sin and temptation until you sweat great drops of blood.

⁵ And have you quite forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you, his child? He said, “My son, don’t be angry when the Lord punishes you. Don’t be discouraged when he has to show you where you are wrong. ⁶ For when he punishes you, it proves that he loves you. When he whips you, it proves you are really his child.”

⁷ Let God train you, for he is doing what any loving father does for his children. Whoever heard of a son who was never corrected? ⁸ If God doesn’t punish you when you need it, as other fathers punish their sons, then it means that you aren’t really God’s son at all—that you don’t really belong in his family. ⁹ Since we respect our fathers here on earth, though they punish us, should we not all the more cheerfully submit to God’s training so that we can begin really to live?

¹⁰ Our earthly fathers trained us for a few brief years, doing the best for us that they knew how, but God’s correction is always right and for our best good, that we may share his holiness. ¹¹ Being punished isn’t enjoyable while it is happening—it hurts! But afterwards we can see the result, a quiet growth in grace and character.

¹² So take a new grip with your tired hands, stand firm on your shaky legs, ¹³ and mark out a straight, smooth path for your feet so that those who follow you, though weak and lame, will not fall and hurt themselves but become strong.

¹⁴ Try to stay out of all quarrels, and seek to live a clean and holy life, for one who is not holy will not see the Lord. ¹⁵ Look after each other so that not one of you will fail to find God’s best blessings. Watch out that no bitterness takes root among you, for as it springs up it causes deep trouble, hurting many in their spiritual lives. ¹⁶ Watch out that no one becomes involved in sexual sin or becomes careless about God as Esau did: he traded his rights as the oldest son for a single meal. ¹⁷ And afterwards, when he wanted those rights back again, it was too late, even though he wept bitter tears of repentance. So remember, and be careful.

¹⁸ You have not had to stand face to face with terror, flaming fire, gloom, darkness, and a terrible storm as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai when God gave them his laws. ¹⁹ For there was an awesome trumpet blast and a voice with a message so terrible that the people begged God to stop speaking. ²⁰ They staggered back under God’s command that if even an animal touched the mountain it must die. ²¹ Moses himself was so frightened at the sight that he shook with terrible fear.

²² But you have come right up into Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the gathering of countless happy angels; ²³ and to the church, composed of all those registered in heaven; and to God who is Judge of all; and to the spirits of the redeemed in heaven, already made perfect; ²⁴ and to Jesus himself, who has brought us his wonderful new agreement; and to the sprinkled blood, which graciously forgives instead of crying out for vengeance as the blood of Abel did.

²⁵ So see to it that you obey him who is speaking to you. For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, how terrible our danger if we refuse to listen to God who speaks to us from heaven! ²⁶ When he spoke from Mount Sinai his voice shook the earth, but, “Next time,” he says, “I will not only shake the earth but the heavens too.” ²⁷ By this he means that he will sift out everything without solid foundations so that only unshakable things will be left.

²⁸ Since we have a Kingdom nothing can destroy, let us please God by serving him with thankful hearts and with holy fear and awe. ²⁹ For our God is a consuming fire.

13 Continue to love each other with true brotherly love. ² Don’t forget to be kind to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it! ³ Don’t forget about those in jail. Suffer with them as though you were there yourself. Share the sorrow of those being mistreated, for you know what they are going through.

⁴ Honor your marriage and its vows, and be pure; for God will surely punish all those who are immoral or commit adultery.

⁵ Stay away from the love of money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never, never fail you nor forsake you.” ⁶ That is why we can say without any doubt or fear, “The Lord is my Helper, and I am not afraid of anything that mere man can do to me.”

⁷ Remember your leaders who have taught you the Word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and try to trust the Lord as they do.

⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. ⁹ So do not be attracted by strange, new ideas. Your spiritual strength comes as a gift from God, not from ceremonial rules about eating certain foods—a method which, by the way, hasn’t helped those who have tried it!

¹⁰ We have an altar—the cross where Christ was sacrificed—where those who continue to seek salvation by obeying Jewish laws can never be helped. ¹¹ Under the system of Jewish laws, the high priest brought the blood of the slain animals into the sanctuary as a sacrifice for sin, and then the bodies of the animals were burned outside the city. ¹² That is why Jesus suffered and died outside the city, where his blood washed our sins away.

¹³ So let us go out to him beyond the city walls (that is, outside the interests of this world, being willing to be despised^[m]) to suffer with him there, bearing his shame. ¹⁴ For this world is not our home; we are looking forward to our everlasting home in heaven.

¹⁵ With Jesus’ help we will continually offer our sacrifice of praise to God by telling others of the glory of his name. ¹⁶ Don’t forget to do good and to share what you have with those in need, for such sacrifices are very pleasing to him. ¹⁷ Obey your spiritual leaders and be willing to do what they say. For their work is to watch over your souls, and God will judge them on how well they do this. Give them reason to report joyfully about you to the Lord and not with sorrow, for then you will suffer for it too.

¹⁸ Pray for us, for our conscience is clear and we want to keep it that way. ¹⁹ I especially need your prayers right now so that I can come back to you sooner.

^20-21 And now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he who became the great Shepherd of the sheep by an everlasting agreement between God and you, signed with his blood, produce in you through the power of Christ all that is pleasing to him. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

²² Brethren, please listen patiently to what I have said in this letter, for it is a short one. ²³ I want you to know that Brother Timothy is now out of jail; if he comes here soon, I will come with him to see you. ^24-25 Give my greetings to all your leaders and to the other believers there. The Christians from Italy who are here with me send you their love. God’s grace be with you all. Good-bye.

1 From: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To: Jewish Christians scattered everywhere. Greetings!

² Dear brothers, is your life full of difficulties and temptations? Then be happy, ³ for when the way is rough, your patience has a chance to grow. ⁴ So let it grow, and don’t try to squirm out of your problems. For when your patience is finally in full bloom, then you will be ready for anything, strong in character, full and complete.

⁵ If you want to know what God wants you to do, ask him, and he will gladly tell you, for he is always ready to give a bountiful supply of wisdom to all who ask him; he will not resent it. ⁶ But when you ask him, be sure that you really expect him to tell you, for a doubtful mind will be as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind; ^7-8 and every decision you then make will be uncertain, as you turn first this way and then that. If you don’t ask with faith, don’t expect the Lord to give you any solid answer.

⁹ A Christian who doesn’t amount to much in this world should be glad, for he is great in the Lord’s sight. ^10-11 But a rich man should be glad that his riches mean nothing to the Lord, for he will soon be gone, like a flower that has lost its beauty and fades away, withered—killed by the scorching summer sun. So it is with rich men. They will soon die and leave behind all their busy activities.

¹² Happy is the man who doesn’t give in and do wrong when he is tempted, for afterwards he will get as his reward the crown of life that God has promised those who love him. ¹³ And remember, when someone wants to do wrong it is never God who is tempting him, for God never wants to do wrong and never tempts anyone else to do it. ¹⁴ Temptation is the pull of man’s own evil thoughts and wishes. ¹⁵ These evil thoughts lead to evil actions and afterwards to the death penalty from God. ¹⁶ So don’t be misled, dear brothers.

¹⁷ But whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God, the Creator of all light, and he shines forever without change or shadow. ¹⁸ And it was a happy day for him when^[n] he gave us our new lives through the truth of his Word, and we became, as it were, the first children in his new family.

¹⁹ Dear brothers, don’t ever forget that it is best to listen much, speak little, and not become angry; ²⁰ for anger doesn’t make us good, as God demands that we must be.

²¹ So get rid of all that is wrong in your life, both inside and outside, and humbly be glad for the wonderful message we have received, for it is able to save our souls as it takes hold of our hearts.

²² And remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. So don’t fool yourselves. ²³ For if a person just listens and doesn’t obey, he is like a man looking at his face in a mirror; ²⁴ as soon as he walks away, he can’t see himself anymore or remember what he looks like. ²⁵ But if anyone keeps looking steadily into God’s law for free men, he will not only remember it but he will do what it says, and God will greatly bless him in everything he does.

²⁶ Anyone who says he is a Christian but doesn’t control his sharp tongue is just fooling himself, and his religion isn’t worth much. ²⁷ The Christian who is pure and without fault, from God the Father’s point of view, is the one who takes care of orphans and widows, and who remains true to the Lord—not soiled and dirtied by his contacts with the world.

2 Dear brothers, how can you claim that you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, if you show favoritism to rich people and look down on poor people?

² If a man comes into your church dressed in expensive clothes and with valuable gold rings on his fingers, and at the same moment another man comes in who is poor and dressed in threadbare clothes, ³ and you make a lot of fuss over the rich man and give him the best seat in the house and say to the poor man, “You can stand over there if you like or else sit on the floor”—well, ⁴ judging a man by his wealth shows that you are guided by wrong motives.

⁵ Listen to me, dear brothers: God has chosen poor people to be rich in faith, and the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs, for that is the gift God has promised to all those who love him. ⁶ And yet, of the two strangers, you have despised the poor man. Don’t you realize that it is usually the rich men who pick on you and drag you into court? ⁷ And all too often they are the ones who laugh at Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear.

⁸ Yes indeed, it is good when you truly obey our Lord’s command, “You must love and help your neighbors just as much as you love and take care of yourself.” ⁹ But you are breaking this law of our Lord’s when you favor the rich and fawn over them; it is sin.

¹⁰ And the person who keeps every law of God but makes one little slip is just as guilty as the person who has broken every law there is. ¹¹ For the God who said you must not marry a woman who already has a husband also said you must not murder, so even though you have not broken the marriage laws by committing adultery, but have murdered someone, you have entirely broken God’s laws and stand utterly guilty before him.

¹² You will be judged on whether or not you are doing what Christ wants you to. So watch what you do and what you think; ¹³ for there will be no mercy to those who have shown no mercy. But if you have been merciful, then God’s mercy toward you will win out over his judgment against you.

¹⁴ Dear brothers, what’s the use of saying that you have faith and are Christians if you aren’t proving it by helping others? Will that kind of faith save anyone? ¹⁵ If you have a friend who is in need of food and clothing, ¹⁶ and you say to him, “Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat hearty,” and then don’t give him clothes or food, what good does that do?

¹⁷ So you see, it isn’t enough just to have faith. You must also do good to prove that you have it. Faith that doesn’t show itself by good works is no faith at all—it is dead and useless.

¹⁸ But someone may well argue, “You say the way to God is by faith alone, plus nothing; well, I say that good works are important too, for without good works you can’t prove whether you have faith or not; but anyone can see that I have faith by the way I act.”

¹⁹ Are there still some among you who hold that “only believing” is enough? Believing in one God? Well, remember that the demons believe this too—so strongly that they tremble in terror! ²⁰ Fool! When will you ever learn that “believing” is useless without doing what God wants you to? Faith that does not result in good deeds is not real faith.

²¹ Don’t you remember that even our father Abraham was declared good because of what he did when he was willing to obey God, even if it meant offering his son Isaac to die on the altar? ²² You see, he was trusting God so much that he was willing to do whatever God told him to; his faith was made complete by what he did—by his actions, his good deeds. ²³ And so it happened just as the Scriptures say, that Abraham trusted God, and the Lord declared him good in God’s sight, and he was even called “the friend of God.” ²⁴ So you see, a man is saved by what he does, as well as by what he believes.

²⁵ Rahab, the prostitute, is another example of this. She was saved because of what she did when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. ²⁶ Just as the body is dead when there is no spirit in it, so faith is dead if it is not the kind that results in good deeds.

3 ^1-2 Dear brothers, don’t be too eager to tell others their faults,^[o] for we all make many mistakes; and when we teachers of religion, who should know better, do wrong, our punishment will be greater than it would be for others.

If anyone can control his tongue, it proves that he has perfect control over himself in every other way. ³ We can make a large horse turn around and go wherever we want by means of a small bit in his mouth. ⁴ And a tiny rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot wants it to go, even though the winds are strong.

⁵ So also the tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do. A great forest can be set on fire by one tiny spark. ⁶ And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is full of wickedness, and poisons every part of the body. And the tongue is set on fire by hell itself and can turn our whole lives into a blazing flame of destruction and disaster.

⁷ Men have trained, or can train, every kind of animal or bird that lives and every kind of reptile and fish, ⁸ but no human being can tame the tongue. It is always ready to pour out its deadly poison. ⁹ Sometimes it praises our heavenly Father, and sometimes it breaks out into curses against men who are made like God. ¹⁰ And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Dear brothers, surely this is not right! ¹¹ Does a spring of water bubble out first with fresh water and then with bitter water? ¹² Can you pick olives from a fig tree, or figs from a grape vine? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty pool.