Suffering for Doing Good

⁸ Finally, all of you, be like-minded,^(A) be sympathetic, love one another,^(B) be compassionate and humble.^{(C) 9} Do not repay evil with evil^(D) or insult with insult.^(E) On the contrary, repay evil with blessing,^(F) because to this^(G) you were called^(H) so that you may inherit a blessing.^{(I) 10} For,

¹³ Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?^(K)

¹³ It is he who will build the temple of the Lord, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he^[a] will be a priest^(A) on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two.’

Warning and Encouragement

¹⁴ Make every effort to live in peace with everyone^(A) and to be holy;^(B) without holiness no one will see the Lord.^(C)

²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,^(A)

¹⁴ They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax^[a] to Caesar or not? ¹⁵ Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”

But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” ¹⁶ They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

“Caesar’s,” they replied.

¹⁷ Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”^(A)

And they were amazed at him.

²¹ For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, greed,^(A) malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.