But thanks be to God! For though at one time you were slaves to sin, you have obeyed with all your heart the truths found in the teaching you received.

to God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time, forever and ever! Amen.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, always give thanks for everything to God the Father.

Your lives will be filled with the truly good qualities which only Jesus Christ can produce, for the glory and praise of God.

Let us, then, always offer praise to God as our sacrifice through Jesus, which is the offering presented by lips that confess him as Lord.

Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple, where you will serve as holy priests to offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ.

Those who preach must preach God's messages; those who serve must serve with the strength that God gives them, so that in all things praise may be given to God through Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory and power forever and ever. Amen.

Everyone has heard of your loyalty to the gospel, and for this reason I am happy about you. I want you to be wise about what is good, but innocent in what is evil.

For not only did the message about the Lord go out from you throughout Macedonia and Achaia, but the news about your faith in God has gone everywhere. There is nothing, then, that we need to say.

All those people speak about how you received us when we visited you, and how you turned away from idols to God, to serve the true and living God

And this Good News about the Kingdom will be preached through all the world for a witness to all people; and then the end will come.

At that time Emperor Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Roman Empire.

One of them, named Agabus, stood up and by the power of the Spirit predicted that a severe famine was about to come over all the earth. (It came when Claudius was emperor.)