⁵ And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us.

A Living Sacrifice

12 Therefore, I urge you,^(A) brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,^(B) holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

The Collection for the Lord’s People

8 And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian^(A) churches.

⁷ For none of us lives for ourselves alone,^(A) and none of us dies for ourselves alone. ⁸ If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.^{(B) 9} For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life^(C) so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.^(D)

¹³ Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness,^(A) but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.^(B)

¹² Also in Judah the hand of God was on the people to give them unity^(A) of mind to carry out what the king and his officials had ordered, following the word of the Lord.

¹⁴ For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.^{(A) 15} And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves^(B) but for him who died for them^(C) and was raised again.

¹⁸ Then the Spirit^(A) came on Amasai,^(B) chief of the Thirty, and he said:

So David received them and made them leaders of his raiding bands.

²⁸ So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life^(A) he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.