Settle Disputes Within the Community

6 Does any one of you, when he has a matter against his neighbor, dare to go to court before the unrighteous and not before the kedoshim? ² Don’t you know that the kedoshim will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to judge trivial matters? ³ Don’t you know that we will judge angels? How much more the matters of this life! ⁴ So if you have courts for matters of this life, why do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the community? ⁵ I say this to put you to shame! Isn’t there even one wise man among you who will be able to settle disputes between his brethren? ⁶ Instead, a brother goes to court against a brother—and before unbelievers at that!

⁷ Therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you have lawsuits among yourselves. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? ⁸ But you yourselves do wrong and cheat—and against your brothers and sisters at that!

Morality in the Temple of God

⁹ Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don’t be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, those who practice homosexuality, ¹⁰ thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ That is what some of you were—but you were washed, you were made holy, you were set right in the name of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah and by the Ruach of our God.

¹² “Everything is permitted for me”—but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permitted for me”—but I will not be controlled by anything. ¹³ “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food”—but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. ¹⁴ Now God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. ¹⁵ Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Messiah? Shall I then take the members of Messiah and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! ¹⁶ Or don’t you know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall become one flesh.” ^{[a] 17} But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality! Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body—but the one committing sexual immorality sins against his own body. ¹⁹ Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Ruach ha-Kodesh who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? ²⁰ For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.^[b]

Counsel About Marriage

7 Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. ² But because of much immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. ³ Let the husband fulfill his obligation to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. ⁴ The wife does not have the rights to her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband does not have the rights to his own body, but the wife. ⁵ Do not deprive one another—except by mutual consent for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.^[c] Then come together again, so that satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control. ⁶ But this I say as a concession, not as a command. ⁷ Yet I wish that all men were like me. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this way and another that.

⁸ But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them to remain as I am. ⁹ But if they do not have self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with desire.

¹⁰ But to the married I command—not I, but the Lord^[d]—a wife is not to be separated from her husband ¹¹ (but if she gets separated, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband is not to divorce his wife.

¹² But to the rest I say—I, not the Lord—if any brother has a wife who is not a believer, and she agrees to live with him, he must not divorce her. ¹³ And if any woman has a husband who is not a believer, and he agrees to live with her, she must not divorce him. ¹⁴ For the unbelieving husband is made holy through the wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband.^[e] Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. ¹⁵ But if the unbeliever separates, let him be separated. The brother or the sister is not bound in such cases, but God has called you to shalom. ¹⁶ For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

Remain As You Were Called

¹⁷ Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, let him walk in this way. I give this rule in all of Messiah’s communities. ¹⁸ Was anyone called when he already had been circumcised? Let him not make himself uncircumcised. Has anyone been called while uncircumcised? Let him not allow himself to be circumcised. ¹⁹ Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing^[f]—but keeping God’s commandments matters. ²⁰ Let each one remain in the calling in which he was called. ²¹ Were you called as a slave? Don’t let that bother you—but if indeed you can become free, make the most of the opportunity. ²² For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise the one who was called while free is Messiah’s slave. ²³ You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. ²⁴ Brothers and sisters, let each one—in whatever way he was called—remain that way with God.

²⁵ Now concerning virgins I have no command from the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. ²⁶ I think then, because of the present distress, that it is good for a man to remain as he is. ²⁷ Are you bound to a wife? Don’t seek a divorce. Are you free from a wife? Don’t seek a wife. ²⁸ But if you marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such people will have trouble in this fleshly life, and I am trying to spare you. ²⁹ But this I say, brothers and sisters—the time is short. From now on those who have wives should be as though they had none; ³⁰ and those who weep, as though not weeping; and those who rejoice, as though not rejoicing; and those who buy, as though not possessing; ³¹ and those who use the world, as though not using it to the fullest. For the present form of this world is passing away.

³² But I want you to be free from cares. An unmarried man cares about the things of the Lord—how he may please the Lord; ³³ but the married man cares about the things of the world—how he may please his wife— ³⁴ and he is divided. The unmarried woman, as well as the virgin, cares about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But the married woman cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband. ³⁵ Now I say this for your own benefit—not to put a restraint on you, but to promote proper and constant service to the Lord without distraction.

³⁶ But if any man thinks that he is behaving inappropriately toward his virgin, if the time is ripe and it is meant to be, let him do what he decides. He does not sin. Let them marry. ³⁷ But he who stands firm in his heart—who has no pressure, but has power over his own will and has so determined in his own heart to keep her a virgin—he will do well. ³⁸ So then both he who marries the virgin does well, and he who doesn’t marry her does better.

³⁹ A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to anyone she wishes—only in the Lord. ^{[g] 40} But in my judgment she is happier if she stays as she is—and I also think that I have the Ruach Elohim.

Escaping Death

20 After the uproar ended, Paul sent for the disciples; and when he had encouraged them and said farewell, he departed to go to Macedonia. ² When he had passed through these parts and given them a great word of encouragement, he came to Greece, ³ where he spent three months. When a plot was formed against him by the Jewish leaders as he was about to sail to Syria, he decided to return via Macedonia. ⁴ Sopater of Berea, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; as well as Aristarchus and Secundus of Thessalonica; Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia. ^{[a] 5} These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas. ⁶ But we sailed from Philippi after the Days of Matzah. In five days we came to them in Troas, where we stayed for seven days.

⁷ Now on the first day of the week, we gathered to break bread. Paul was talking with them, intending to leave the next day, so he prolonged his speech till midnight. ⁸ There were many lamps in the upper chamber where we were meeting. ⁹ Now a young man named Eutychus was sitting in a windowsill, sinking into a deep sleep as Paul kept on talking. Overcome by sleep, he fell from the third story and was picked up—dead.

¹⁰ But Paul went down, fell on him and threw his arms around him. He said, “Don’t be upset, for his life is within him.”^[b]

¹¹ After he went back up and broke the bread and ate, he talked with them a long while until daybreak and then left. ¹² So they took the boy away alive, greatly relieved.

Prophetic Warnings

¹³ But we went on ahead to the ship and set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there—for so he had arranged, intending himself to travel there by land. ¹⁴ When he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene. ¹⁵ Sailing from there, we arrived the next day opposite Chios; the next day we crossed over to Samos, and the day after that we came to Miletus. ¹⁶ For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he might not spend much time in Asia, because he was hurrying to be in Jerusalem, if possible, by the day of Shavuot.

¹⁷ From Miletus, dispatching someone to Ephesus, he called for the elders of the community. ¹⁸ When they came to him, he said to them, “You yourselves know how I behaved among you all the time from the first day I set foot in Asia, ¹⁹ serving the Lord with all humility and tears and trials which fell upon me through the plots of the Jewish leaders. ²⁰ I did not shrink back from proclaiming to you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly as well as from house to house, ²¹ testifying to both Jewish and Greek people repentance to God and trust in our Lord Yeshua.

²² “And now, look, bound by the Ruach, I am going to Jerusalem—not knowing what will happen to me there, ²³ except that the Ruach ha-Kodesh bears witness to me from city to city, saying that bondage and afflictions await me. ²⁴ However, I don’t consider my life of any value, except that I might finish my course and the office I received from the Lord Yeshua, to declare the Good News of the grace of God.

²⁵ “Now, look! I know that none of you, among whom I have gone proclaiming the kingdom, will ever see my face again. ²⁶ Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all. ²⁷ For I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.

²⁸ “Take care of yourselves and all the flock of which the Ruach ha-Kodesh has made you overseers, to shepherd the community of God—which He obtained with the blood of His own. ^{[c] 29} I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. ^{[d] 30} Even from among yourselves will arise men speaking perversions, to draw the disciples away after themselves. ³¹ Therefore be alert, remembering that night and day for three years I did not stop warning you with tears.

³² “Now I commit you to God and the word of His grace, which is strong to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who have been made holy. ³³ I coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothing. ³⁴ You yourselves know that these hands of mine have provided for my own needs as well as for those with me. ³⁵ In all things I have shown you an object lesson—that by hard work one must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Yeshua, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”^[e]

³⁶ When he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. ³⁷ They all began weeping and falling upon Paul’s neck and kissing him, ³⁸ grieving most of all over the statement he made that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.