You know my heart. You have come to me at night; you have examined me completely and found no evil desire in me. I speak no evil,

Examine me and test me, LORD; judge my desires and thoughts.

I have considered my conduct, and I promise to follow your instructions.

Examine me, O God, and know my mind; test me, and discover my thoughts.

Find out if there is any evil in me and guide me in the everlasting way.

Let us examine our ways and turn back to the LORD.

He realizes what he is doing and stops sinning, so he will certainly not die, but go on living.

Don't you see what is happening to you?

Can't you see why this has happened?

So then, you should each examine yourself first, and then eat the bread and drink from the cup.

If we would examine ourselves first, we would not come under God's judgment.

You should each judge your own conduct. If it is good, then you can be proud of what you yourself have done, without having to compare it with what someone else has done.

Now, God has offered us the promise that we may receive that rest he spoke about. Let us take care, then, that none of you will be found to have failed to receive that promised rest.

Guard against turning back from the grace of God. Let no one become like a bitter plant that grows up and causes many troubles with its poison.

If our conscience condemns us, we know that God is greater than our conscience and that he knows everything.

And so, my dear friends, if our conscience does not condemn us, we have courage in God's presence.

Think how far you have fallen! Turn from your sins and do what you did at first. If you don't turn from your sins, I will come to you and take your lampstand from its place.

So wake up, and strengthen what you still have before it dies completely. For I find that what you have done is not yet perfect in the sight of my God.

Remember, then, what you were taught and what you heard; obey it and turn from your sins. If you do not wake up, I will come upon you like a thief, and you will not even know the time when I will come.

You must, of course, continue faithful on a firm and sure foundation, and must not allow yourselves to be shaken from the hope you gained when you heard the gospel. It is of this gospel that I, Paul, became a servant---this gospel which has been preached to everybody in the world.

Keep your roots deep in him, build your lives on him, and become stronger in your faith, as you were taught. And be filled with thanksgiving.

But a woman will be saved through having children, if she perseveres in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

(SEE 1:12)

Instruct the older men to be sober, sensible, and self-controlled; to be sound in their faith, love, and endurance.

Be firm in your faith and resist him, because you know that other believers in all the world are going through the same kind of sufferings.

Surely you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you!

Don't you know that God's people will judge the world? Well, then, if you are to judge the world, aren't you capable of judging small matters?

You know that your bodies are parts of the body of Christ. Shall I take a part of Christ's body and make it part of the body of a prostitute? Impossible!

Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God;

Surely you know that many runners take part in a race, but only one of them wins the prize. Run, then, in such a way as to win the prize.

Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.

How can God's temple come to terms with pagan idols? For we are the temple of the living God! As God himself has said, "I will make my home with my people and live among them; I will be their God, and they shall be my people."

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me, and I live in them.

Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and my Father and I will come to them and live with them.

Remain united to me, and I will remain united to you. A branch cannot bear fruit by itself; it can do so only if it remains in the vine. In the same way you cannot bear fruit unless you remain in me.

I in them and you in me, so that they may be completely one, in order that the world may know that you sent me and that you love them as you love me.

I made you known to them, and I will continue to do so, in order that the love you have for me may be in them, and so that I also may be in them."

But if Christ lives in you, the Spirit is life for you because you have been put right with God, even though your bodies are going to die because of sin.

so that it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. This life that I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.

My dear children! Once again, just like a mother in childbirth, I feel the same kind of pain for you until Christ's nature is formed in you.

You, too, are built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, the cornerstone being Christ Jesus himself.

In union with him you too are being built together with all the others into a place where God lives through his Spirit.

and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love,

God's plan is to make known his secret to his people, this rich and glorious secret which he has for all peoples. And the secret is that Christ is in you, which means that you will share in the glory of God.

and have stopped holding on to Christ, who is the head of the body. Under Christ's control the whole body is nourished and held together by its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God wants it to grow.

Come to the Lord, the living stone rejected by people as worthless but chosen by God as valuable.

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.

I trust you will know that we are not failures.

We pray to God that you will do no wrong---not in order to show that we are a success, but so that you may do what is right, even though we may seem to be failures.

They will be called worthless dross, because I, the LORD, have rejected them."

Because those people refuse to keep in mind the true knowledge about God, he has given them over to corrupted minds, so that they do the things that they should not do.

As Jannes and Jambres were opposed to Moses, so also these people are opposed to the truth---people whose minds do not function and who are failures in the faith.

They claim that they know God, but their actions deny it. They are hateful and disobedient, not fit to do anything good.

I harden my body with blows and bring it under complete control, to keep myself from being disqualified after having called others to the contest.

But if it grows thorns and weeds, it is worth nothing; it is in danger of being cursed by God and will be destroyed by fire.