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.^(A)

³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

⁷ so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.^(A)

¹⁶ He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you and in the end to do you good.^(A)

⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.^(A)

⁵ In the same way, you who are younger must be subject to the elders.^[a] And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for

⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.

⁷ Surely the Lord your God has blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.” ’^(A)

² But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like washers’ soap;^{(A) 3} he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.^[a](B)

³¹ So also in the matter of the envoys of the officials of Babylon, who had been sent to him to inquire about the sign that had been done in the land, God left him to himself, in order to test him and to know all that was in his heart.^(A)

²⁵ He cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood; he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

There the Lord^[a] made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he put them to the test.^(A)