⁸ It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going.

²³ This is what I told them: ‘Obey me, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Do everything as I say, and all will be well!’

³⁰ “In the distant future, when you are suffering all these things, you will finally return to the Lord your God and listen to what he tells you.

¹³ But if you stop your sinning and begin to obey the Lord your God, he will change his mind about this disaster that he has announced against you.

⁵ You have spent your years on earth in luxury, satisfying your every desire. You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter.

¹⁷ Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you.

² The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad,^[a] ceremonially clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don’t.

³ It seems so wrong that everyone under the sun suffers the same fate. Already twisted by evil, people choose their own mad course, for they have no hope. There is nothing ahead but death anyway.