1 And King David was old and advanced in years; they covered him with [bed]clothes, but he could not get warm.

² So his servants [the ^[a]physicians] said to him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin, and let her wait on and be useful to the king; let her lie in your bosom, that my lord the king may get warm.

³ So they sought a fair maiden through all the territory of Israel and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king.

⁴ The maiden was beautiful; and she waited on and nursed him. But the king had no intercourse with her.

⁵ Then Adonijah son of [David’s wife] Haggith exalted himself, saying, I [the eldest living son] will be king. And he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, with fifty men to run before him.

⁶ David his father had never in his life displeased him by asking, Why have you done so? He was also a very attractive man and was born after Absalom.

⁷ He conferred with ^[b]Joab son of Zeruiah [David’s half sister] and with Abiathar the priest, and they followed Adonijah and helped him.

⁸ But Zadok the priest, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, Nathan the prophet, Shimei, Rei, and David’s mighty men did not side with Adonijah.

⁹ Adonijah sacrificed sheep, oxen, and fatlings by the Stone of Zoheleth, which is beside [the well] En-rogel; and he invited all his brothers, the king’s sons, and all the royal officials of Judah.

¹⁰ But Nathan the prophet, Benaiah, the mighty men, and Solomon his brother he did not invite.

¹¹ Then Nathan said to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, Have you not heard that Adonijah, the son of Haggith, reigns and David our lord does not know it?

¹² Come now, let me advise you how to save your own life and your son Solomon’s.

3 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the back or west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb or Sinai, the mountain of God.

² The ^[a]Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, yet was not consumed.

³ And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.

⁴ And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses! And he said, Here am I.

⁵ God said, Do not come near; put your shoes off your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground.

⁶ Also He said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

⁷ And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters and oppressors; for I know their sorrows and sufferings and trials.

⁸ And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand and power of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a land good and large, a land flowing with milk and honey [a land of plenty]—to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

⁹ Now behold, the cry of the Israelites has come to Me, and I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.

¹⁰ Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring forth My people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.

¹¹ And Moses said to God, ^[b]Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?

¹² God said, I will surely be with you; and this shall be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain [Horeb, or Sinai].

5 Therefore be imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father].

² And walk in love, [esteeming and delighting in one another] as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a ^[a]slain offering and sacrifice to God [for you, so that it became] a sweet fragrance.^(A)

³ But immorality (sexual vice) and all impurity [^[b]of lustful, rich, wasteful living] or greediness must not even be named among you, as is fitting and proper among saints (God’s consecrated people).

⁴ Let there be no filthiness (obscenity, indecency) nor foolish and sinful (silly and corrupt) talk, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting or becoming; but instead voice your thankfulness [to God].

⁵ For be sure of this: that no person practicing sexual vice or impurity in thought or in life, or one who is covetous [who has lustful desire for the property of others and is greedy for gain]—for he [in effect] is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

⁶ Let no one delude and deceive you with empty excuses and groundless arguments [for these sins], for through these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of rebellion and disobedience.

⁷ So do not associate or be sharers with them.

⁸ For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of Light [lead the lives of those native-born to the Light].

⁹ For the fruit (the effect, the product) of the Light or ^[c]the Spirit [consists] in every form of kindly goodness, uprightness of heart, and trueness of life.

¹⁰ And try to learn [in your experience] what is pleasing to the Lord [let your lives be constant proofs of what is most acceptable to Him].

¹¹ Take no part in and have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead [let your lives be so in contrast as to] ^[d]expose and reprove and convict them.

¹² For it is a shame even to speak of or mention the things that [such people] practice in secret.

¹³ But when anything is exposed and reproved by the light, it is made visible and clear; and where everything is visible and clear there is light.

¹⁴ Therefore He says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine (make day dawn) upon you and give you light.^(B)