Injustice and Oppression to Be Punished

¹² Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. ¹³ Till I come, attend to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, to teaching. ¹⁴ Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophetic utterance when the council of elders laid their hands upon you. ¹⁵ Practice these duties, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. ¹⁶ Take heed to yourself and to your teaching; hold to that, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Duties toward Believers

5 Do not rebuke an older man but exhort him as you would a father; treat younger men like brothers, ² older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity.

³ Honor widows who are real widows. ⁴ If a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn their religious duty to their own family and make some return to their parents; for this is acceptable in the sight of God. ⁵ She who is a real widow, and is left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day; ⁶ whereas she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. ⁷ Command this, so that they may be without reproach. ⁸ If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

⁹ Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband; ¹⁰ and she must be well attested for her good deeds, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the feet of the saints, relieved the afflicted, and devoted herself to doing good in every way.

¹³ No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man.^{[a] 14} And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”^[b]

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸ He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹ And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. ²¹ But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.