²⁴ May God’s grace be eternally upon all who love our Lord Jesus Christ.

¹⁵ Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.

¹⁶ So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

¹⁵ Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.

¹³ He also said,

⁵ That is why, when I could bear it no longer, I sent Timothy to find out whether your faith was still strong. I was afraid that the tempter had gotten the best of you and that our work had been useless.

⁶ But now Timothy has just returned, bringing us good news about your faith and love. He reports that you always remember our visit with joy and that you want to see us as much as we want to see you.

⁵ Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you^[a]; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.

¹⁴ Either way, Christ’s love controls us.^[a] Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.^{[b] 15} He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.

¹¹ So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.

Paul and Barnabas Separate

³⁶ After some time Paul said to Barnabas, “Let’s go back and visit each city where we previously preached the word of the Lord, to see how the new believers are doing.”