16 Live as free people,(A) but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil;(B) live as God’s slaves.(C)

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16 As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.

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Psalm 23

A psalm of David.

The Lord is my shepherd,(A) I lack nothing.(B)

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23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

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You care for the land and water it;(A)
    you enrich it abundantly.(B)
The streams of God are filled with water
    to provide the people with grain,(C)
    for so you have ordained it.[a]
10 You drench its furrows and level its ridges;
    you soften it with showers(D) and bless its crops.
11 You crown the year with your bounty,(E)
    and your carts overflow with abundance.(F)
12 The grasslands of the wilderness overflow;(G)
    the hills are clothed with gladness.(H)
13 The meadows are covered with flocks(I)
    and the valleys are mantled with grain;(J)
    they shout for joy and sing.(K)

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Footnotes

  1. Psalm 65:9 Or for that is how you prepare the land

Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it.

10 Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers: thou blessest the springing thereof.

11 Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.

12 They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side.

13 The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.

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Watchfulness(A)(B)

35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. 37 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes.(C) Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.(D) 38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief(E) was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready,(F) because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

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35 Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;

36 And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.

37 Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.

38 And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.

39 And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through.

40 Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.

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31 Our ancestors ate the manna(A) in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[a](B)

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Footnotes

  1. John 6:31 Exodus 16:4; Neh. 9:15; Psalm 78:24,25

31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

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However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
    what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[a]
    the things God has prepared for those who love him—(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Corinthians 2:9 Isaiah 64:4

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

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The Nature of True Apostleship

This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants(A) of Christ and as those entrusted(B) with the mysteries(C) God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

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Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.

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And God is able(A) to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need,(B) you will abound in every good work. As it is written:

“They have freely scattered their gifts(C) to the poor;
    their righteousness endures forever.”[a](D)

10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food(E) will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.(F)

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Corinthians 9:9 Psalm 112:9

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:

(As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever.

10 Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)

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