A Warning Not to Forget God in Prosperity

8 “The entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors.^{(A) 2} Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.^{(B) 3} He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.^{(C) 4} The clothes on your back did not wear out, and your feet did not swell these forty years.^{(D) 5} Know, then, in your heart that, as a parent disciplines a child, so the Lord your God disciplines you.^{(E) 6} Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.^{(F) 7} For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills,^{(G) 8} a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, ⁹ a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. ¹⁰ You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.^(H)

Psalm 34

Praise for Deliverance from Trouble

Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.

The Old Life and the New

¹⁷ Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer walk as the^[a] gentiles walk, in the futility of their minds;^{(A) 18} they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.^{(B) 19} They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. ²⁰ That is not the way you learned Christ! ²¹ For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus, ²² to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts,^{(C) 23} and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴ and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.^(D)

Rules for the New Life

²⁵ So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another.^{(E) 26} Be angry but do not sin;^[b] do not let the sun go down on your anger, ²⁷ and do not make room for the devil. ²⁸ Those who steal must give up stealing; rather, let them labor, doing good work with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. ²⁹ Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is good for building up,^[c] as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. ³⁰ And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.^{(F) 31} Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice.^{(G) 32} Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.^[d](H) 5 ¹ Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,^{(I) 2} and walk in love, as Christ loved us^[e] and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.^(J)

³⁷ Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away,^{(A) 38} for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.^{(B) 39} And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day.^{(C) 40} This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.”^(D)

⁴¹ Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴² They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”^{(E) 43} Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. ⁴⁴ No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me, and I will raise that person up on the last day.^{(F) 45} It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.^{(G) 46} Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.^{(H) 47} Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.^{(I) 48} I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰ This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”^(J)