¹⁷ Some time later the woman’s son became sick. He grew worse and worse, and finally he died.

Suffering for Being a Christian

¹² Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you.

⁷ These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

²⁶ Just as the body is dead without breath,^[a] so also faith is dead without good works.

¹² God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

Faith and Endurance

² Dear brothers and sisters,^[a] when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. ³ For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. ⁴ So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

¹⁴ So he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.

³ So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Lord, your dear friend is very sick.”

⁴ But when Jesus heard about it he said, “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.”

¹⁰ “Then I will pour out a spirit^[a] of grace and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem. They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as for a firstborn son who has died.

²³ For you have proudly defied the Lord of heaven and have had these cups from his Temple brought before you. You and your nobles and your wives and concubines have been drinking wine from them while praising gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone—gods that neither see nor hear nor know anything at all. But you have not honored the God who gives you the breath of life and controls your destiny!