³⁰ For it is the nations^[a] of the world that seek all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.^(A)

³² For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

² so as to live for the rest of your time in the flesh no longer by human desires but by the will of God.^{(A) 3} You have already spent enough time in doing what the gentiles like to do, living in debauchery, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.^{(B) 4} They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme.^[a](C)

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)

³² “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.^(A)

¹⁴ So it is not the will of your^[a] Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.

²⁰ for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.^(A)

⁵ not with lustful passion, like the gentiles who do not know God;

¹⁷ Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”^(A)