Chosen, Not Because of Worthiness

1. When Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you, the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than you; 2. and when Yahweh your God delivers them up before you, and you strike them; then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them. 3. You shall not make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son. 4. For he will turn away your son from following me, that they may serve other gods. So Yahweh’s anger would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5. But you shall deal with them like this. You shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their engraved images with fire. 6. For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7. Yahweh didn’t set his love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples: 8. but because Yahweh loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, Yahweh has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9. Know therefore that Yahweh your God himself is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with them who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations, 10. and repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack to him who hates him. He will repay him to his face. 11. You shall therefore keep the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command you today, to do them. 12. It shall happen, because you listen to these ordinances, and keep and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you the covenant and the loving kindness which he swore to your fathers. 13. He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your livestock and the young of your flock, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you. 14. You will be blessed above all peoples. There won’t be male or female barren among you, or among your livestock. 15. Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and he will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, on you, but will lay them on all those who hate you. 16. You shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God shall deliver to you. Your eye shall not pity them. You shall not serve their gods; for that would be a snare to you. 17. If you shall say in your heart, “These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?” 18. you shall not be afraid of them. You shall remember well what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh, and to all Egypt: 19. the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which Yahweh your God brought you out. So shall Yahweh your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20. Moreover Yahweh your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left, and hide themselves, perish from before you. 21. You shall not be scared of them; for Yahweh your God is among you, a great and awesome God. 22. Yahweh your God will cast out those nations before you little by little. You may not consume them at once, lest the animals of the field increase on you. 23. But Yahweh your God will deliver them up before you, and will confuse them with a great confusion, until they are destroyed. 24. He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under the sky. No one will be able to stand before you, until you have destroyed them. 25. You shall burn the engraved images of their gods with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, lest you be snared in it; for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God. 26. You shall not bring an abomination into your house, and become a devoted thing like it. You shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing. 1. You shall observe to do all the commandments which I command you today, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers. 2. You shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not. 3. He humbled you, and allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know; that he might teach you that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth. 4. Your clothing didn’t grow old on you, neither did your foot swell, these forty years. 5. You shall consider in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Yahweh your God disciplines you. 6. You shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him. 7. For Yahweh your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of springs, and underground water flowing into valleys and hills; 8. a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey; 9. a land in which you shall eat bread without scarceness, you shall not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper. 10. You shall eat and be full, and you shall bless Yahweh your God for the good land which he has given you. 11. Beware lest you forget Yahweh your God, in not keeping his commandments, and his ordinances, and his statutes, which I command you today; 12. lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built fine houses, and lived in them; 13. and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; 14. then your heart might be lifted up, and you forget Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; 15. who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with venomous snakes and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water; who poured water for you out of the rock of flint; 16. who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers didn’t know; that he might humble you, and that he might prove you, to do you good at your latter end: 17. and lest you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth.” 18. But you shall remember Yahweh your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth; that he may establish his covenant which he swore to your fathers, as it is today. 19. It shall be, if you shall forget Yahweh your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you today that you shall surely perish. 20. As the nations that Yahweh makes to perish before you, so you shall perish; because you wouldn’t listen to Yahweh your God’s voice. 1. Hear, Israel! You are to pass over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to the sky, 2. a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard say, “Who can stand before the sons of Anak?” 3. Know therefore today, that Yahweh your God is he who goes over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them, and he will bring them down before you. So you shall drive them out, and make them perish quickly, as Yahweh has spoken to you. 4. Don’t say in your heart, after Yahweh your God has thrust them out from before you, saying, “For my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land”; because Yahweh drives them out before you because of the wickedness of these nations. 5. Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your heart, do you go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations Yahweh your God does drive them out from before you, and that he may establish the word which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 6. Know therefore, that Yahweh your God doesn’t give you this good land to possess for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people. 7. Remember, and don’t forget, how you provoked Yahweh your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you left the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh. 8. Also in Horeb you provoked Yahweh to wrath, and Yahweh was angry with you to destroy you. 9. When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant which Yahweh made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10. Yahweh delivered to me the two stone tablets written with God’s finger. On them were all the words which Yahweh spoke with you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly. 11. It came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that Yahweh gave me the two stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant. 12. Yahweh said to me, “Arise, get down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned away from the way which I commanded them. They have made a molten image for themselves!” 13. Furthermore Yahweh spoke to me, saying, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 14. Leave me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under the sky; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.” 15. So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. The two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16. I looked, and behold, you had sinned against Yahweh your God. You had made yourselves a molten calf. You had quickly turned away from the way which Yahweh had commanded you. 17. I took hold of the two tablets, and threw them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. 18. I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger. 19. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which Yahweh was angry against you to destroy you. But Yahweh listened to me that time also. 20. Yahweh was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21. I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. I threw its dust into the brook that descended out of the mountain. 22. At Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth Hattaavah, you provoked Yahweh to wrath. 23. When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you,” you rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God, and you didn’t believe him, nor listen to his voice. 24. You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day that I knew you. 25. So I fell down before Yahweh the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because Yahweh had said he would destroy you. 26. I prayed to Yahweh, and said, “Lord Yahweh, don’t destroy your people and your inheritance, that you have redeemed through your greatness, that you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Don’t look at the stubbornness of this people, nor at their wickedness, nor at their sin, 28. lest the land you brought us out from say, ‘Because Yahweh was not able to bring them into the land which he promised to them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’ 29. Yet they are your people and your inheritance, which you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”

1. So let a man think of us as Christ’s servants, and stewards of God’s mysteries. 2. Here, moreover, it is required of stewards, that they be found faithful. 3. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by man’s judgment. Yes, I don’t judge my own self. 4. For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by this, but he who judges me is the Lord. 5. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each man will get his praise from God. 6. Now these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to think beyond the things which are written, that none of you be puffed up against one another. 7. For who makes you different? And what do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? 8. You are already filled. You have already become rich. You have come to reign without us. Yes, and I wish that you did reign, that we also might reign with you. 9. For, I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men. 10. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor. 11. Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place. 12. We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure. 13. Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now. 14. I don’t write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15. For though you have ten thousand tutors in Christ, you don’t have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Good News. 16. I beg you therefore, be imitators of me. 17. Because of this I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in every assembly. 18. Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you. 19. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord is willing. And I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. 20. For God’s Kingdom is not in word, but in power. 21. What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness? 1. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife. 2. You are puffed up, and didn’t rather mourn, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you. 3. For I most certainly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing. 4. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5. are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 6. Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump? 7. Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place. 8. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 9. I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners; 10. yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortionists, or with idolaters; for then you would have to leave the world. 11. But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist. Don’t even eat with such a person. 12. For what do I have to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within? 13. But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.” 1. Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbor, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? 2. Don’t you know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 3. Don’t you know that we will judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? 4. If then, you have to judge things pertaining to this life, do you set them to judge who are of no account in the assembly? 5. I say this to move you to shame. Isn’t there even one wise man among you who would be able to decide between his brothers? 6. But brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers! 7. Therefore it is already altogether a defect in you, that you have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? 8. No, but you yourselves do wrong, and defraud, and that against your brothers. 9. Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, 10. nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom. 11. Such were some of you, but you were washed. But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God. 12. “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are expedient. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be brought under the power of anything. 13. “Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods,” but God will bring to nothing both it and them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. 14. Now God raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power. 15. Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16. Or don’t you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For, “The two”, he says, “will become one flesh.” 17. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. 18. Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin that a man does is outside the body,” but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19. Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20. for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

1. Hear this, all you peoples. Listen, all you inhabitants of the world, 2. both low and high, rich and poor together. 3. My mouth will speak words of wisdom. My heart shall utter understanding. 4. I will incline my ear to a proverb. I will open my riddle on the harp. 5. Why should I fear in the days of evil, when iniquity at my heels surrounds me? 6. Those who trust in their wealth, and boast in the multitude of their riches— 7. none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give God a ransom for him. 8. For the redemption of their life is costly, no payment is ever enough, 9. that he should live on forever, that he should not see corruption. 10. For he sees that wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless perish, and leave their wealth to others. 11. Their inward thought is that their houses will endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They name their lands after themselves. 12. But man, despite his riches, doesn’t endure. He is like the animals that perish. 13. This is the destiny of those who are foolish, and of those who approve their sayings. Selah. 14. They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, far from their mansion. 15. But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Selah. 16. Don’t be afraid when a man is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased; 17. for when he dies he will carry nothing away. His glory won’t descend after him. 18. Though while he lived he blessed his soul— and men praise you when you do well for yourself— 19. he shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see the light. 20. A man who has riches without understanding, is like the animals that perish.