exhorting and encouraging you and insisting that you live in a way worthy of God who calls you to his own kingdom and his glory.

to aspire to lead a quiet life, to attend to your own business, and to work with your hands, as we commanded you.

And we are confident about you in the Lord that you are both doing – and will do – what we are commanding.

For even when we were with you, we used to give you this command: “If anyone is not willing to work, neither should he eat.”

Now such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and so provide their own food to eat. ¹ 

The reason I left you in Crete was to set in order the remaining matters and to appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.

So communicate these things with the sort of exhortation or rebuke ¹  that carries full authority. ²  Don’t let anyone look down ³  on you.

For every high priest is taken from among the people ¹  and appointed ²  to represent them before God, ³  to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.

And those of the sons of Levi who receive the priestly office ¹  have authorization according to the law to collect a tithe from the people, that is, from their fellow countrymen, ²  although they too are descendants of Abraham. ³ 

But there is only one who is lawgiver and judge – the one who is able to save and destroy. On the other hand, who are you to judge your neighbor? ¹ 

So then let those who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator as they do good. ¹ 

Give a shepherd’s care to ¹  God’s flock among you, exercising oversight ²  not merely as a duty ³  but willingly under God’s direction, ⁴  not for shameful profit but eagerly.

yet even ¹  angels, who are much more powerful, ²  do not bring a slanderous ³  judgment against them before the Lord. ⁴ 

And the commandment we have from him is this: that ¹  the one who loves God should love his fellow Christian ²  too.

By this ¹  we know that we love the children of God: whenever we love God and obey his commandments.

But now ¹  I ask you, lady (not as if I were ²  writing a new commandment ³  to you, but the one ⁴  we have had from the beginning), ⁵  that ⁶  we love one another.

In the second year after they had come to the temple of God in Jerusalem, ¹  in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak initiated the work, ²  along with the rest of their associates, ³  the priests and the Levites, and all those who were coming to Jerusalem from the exile. They appointed ⁴  the Levites who were at least twenty years old ⁵  to take charge of the work on the Lord’s temple.

God blessed ¹  them and said ²  to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! ³  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.” ⁴ 

I have chosen him ¹  so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep ²  the way of the Lord by doing ³  what is right and just. Then the Lord will give ⁴  to Abraham what he promised ⁵  him.”

Now Joseph was the ruler of the country, the one who sold grain to all the people of the country. ¹  Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down ²  before him with ³  their faces to the ground.