Blessings for Obedience

26 “You shall not make ^(A)idols for yourselves or erect an ^(B)image or ^(C)pillar, and you shall not set up a ^(D)figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. ^2 (E)You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

^3 (F)“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, ⁴ then ^(G)I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. ^5 (H)Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And ^(I)you shall eat your bread to the full and ^(J)dwell in your land securely. ^6 (K)I will give peace in the land, and ^(L)you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And ^(M)I will remove harmful beasts from the land, ^(N)and the sword shall not go through your land. ⁷ You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. ^8 (O)Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. ^9 (P)I will turn to you and ^(Q)make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. ¹⁰ You shall eat ^(R)old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. ^11 (S)I will make my dwelling^[a] among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. ^12 (T)And I ^(U)will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. ^13 (V)I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. ^(W)And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

Punishment for Disobedience

^14 (X)“But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, ¹⁵ if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but ^(Y)break my covenant, ¹⁶ then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with ^(Z)wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And ^(AA)you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. ¹⁷ I will ^(AB)set my face against you, and ^(AC)you shall be struck down before your enemies. ^(AD)Those who hate you shall rule over you, and ^(AE)you shall flee when none pursues you. ¹⁸ And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again ^(AF)sevenfold for your sins, ¹⁹ and I will break ^(AG)the pride of your power, and I ^(AH)will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. ²⁰ And ^(AI)your strength shall be spent in vain, for ^(AJ)your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

^21 (AK)“Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. ²² And ^(AL)I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that ^(AM)your roads shall be deserted.

²³ “And ^(AN)if by this discipline you are not turned to me ^(AO)but walk contrary to me, ^24 (AP)then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁵ And ^(AQ)I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, ^(AR)I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ^26 (AS)When I break your supply^[b] of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and ^(AT)you shall eat and not be satisfied.

²⁷ “But ^(AU)if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, ²⁸ then I will walk contrary to you ^(AV)in fury, and I myself will discipline you ^(AW)sevenfold for your sins. ^29 (AX)You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰ And ^(AY)I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and ^(AZ)cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. ³¹ And I will ^(BA)lay your cities waste and will ^(BB)make your sanctuaries desolate, and ^(BC)I will not smell your pleasing aromas. ³² And ^(BD)I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be ^(BE)appalled at it. ³³ And ^(BF)I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

^34 (BG)“Then the land shall enjoy^[c] its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. ³⁶ And as for those of you who are left, ^(BH)I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The ^(BI)sound of a ^(BJ)driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. ³⁷ They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And ^(BK)you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸ And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. ³⁹ And those of you who are left shall ^(BL)rot away in your enemies' lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.

⁴⁰ “But if ^(BM)they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they ^(BN)committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, ⁴¹ so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their ^(BO)uncircumcised heart is ^(BP)humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will ^(BQ)remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will ^(BR)remember the land. ⁴³ But ^(BS)the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, ^(BT)I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and ^(BU)break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. ⁴⁵ But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, ^(BV)whom I brought out of the land of Egypt ^(BW)in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”

^46 (BX)These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses ^(BY)on Mount Sinai.

Blessed Is Everyone Who Fears the Lord

A Song of ^(A)Ascents.

7 Since we have these promises, beloved, ^(A)let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body^[a] and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

Paul's Joy

^2 (B)Make room in your hearts^[b] for us. ^(C)We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one. ³ I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that ^(D)you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together. ⁴ I am acting with ^(E)great boldness toward you; ^(F)I have great pride in you; ^(G)I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.

⁵ For even ^(H)when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn—^(I)fighting without and fear within. ⁶ But ^(J)God, who comforts the downcast, ^(K)comforted us by the coming of Titus, ⁷ and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more. ⁸ For ^(L)even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though ^(M)I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. ⁹ As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but ^(N)because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.

¹⁰ For ^(O)godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas ^(P)worldly grief produces death. ¹¹ For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, ^(Q)what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. ¹² So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one ^(R)who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God. ¹³ Therefore ^(S)we are comforted.

And besides our own comfort, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit ^(T)has been refreshed by you all. ¹⁴ For ^(U)whatever boasts I made to him about you, I was not put to shame. But just as everything we said to you ^(V)was true, so also our boasting before Titus has proved true. ¹⁵ And his affection for you is even greater, as he remembers ^(W)the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling. ¹⁶ I rejoice, because I have complete ^(X)confidence in you.

Encouragement to Give Generously

8 We want you to know, brothers,^[c] about the grace of God that has been ^(Y)given among the churches of Macedonia, ² for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and ^(Z)their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. ³ For they gave ^(AA)according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, ⁴ begging us earnestly ^(AB)for the favor^[d] of taking part in ^(AC)the relief of the saints— ⁵ and this, not as we expected, but they ^(AD)gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. ⁶ Accordingly, ^(AE)we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you ^(AF)this act of grace. ⁷ But as ^(AG)you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you^[e]—^(AH)see that you excel in this act of grace also.

^8 (AI)I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. ⁹ For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ^(AJ)though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. ¹⁰ And in this matter ^(AK)I give my judgment: ^(AL)this benefits you, who ^(AM)a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. ¹¹ So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. ¹² For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable ^(AN)according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. ¹³ For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness ¹⁴ your abundance at the present time should supply ^(AO)their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. ¹⁵ As it is written, ^(AP)“Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.”

Commendation of Titus

¹⁶ But ^(AQ)thanks be to God, ^(AR)who put into the heart of Titus the same earnest care I have for you. ¹⁷ For ^(AS)he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest he is going^[f] to you of his own accord. ¹⁸ With him we are sending^{[g] (AT)}the brother who is famous among ^(AU)all the churches for his preaching of the gospel. ¹⁹ And not only that, but he has been ^(AV)appointed by the churches to travel with us as we carry out this act of ^(AW)grace that is being ministered by us, ^(AX)for the glory of the Lord himself and to show our good will. ²⁰ We take this course so that no one should blame us about this generous gift that is being administered by us, ²¹ for ^(AY)we aim at what is honorable ^(AZ)not only in the Lord's sight but also in the sight of man. ²² And with them we are sending our brother whom we have often tested and found earnest in many matters, but who is now more earnest than ever because of his great confidence in you. ²³ As for Titus, he is ^(BA)my partner and fellow worker for your benefit. And as for our brothers, they are messengers^[h] of the churches, the glory of Christ. ²⁴ So give proof before the churches of your love and of ^(BB)our boasting about you to these men.