Dear friends, let us love one another, because ¹  love is from God, and everyone who loves ²  has been fathered ³  by God and knows God.

When the Philistines saw he had no attendants, they gave him thirty groomsmen who kept him company. ¹ 

But you, ¹  brothers and sisters, ²  are children of the promise like Isaac.

Give greetings to all the saints in Christ Jesus. The brothers ¹  with me here send greetings.

treacherous, reckless, conceited, loving pleasure rather than loving God.

Listen now, Joshua the high priest, both you and your colleagues who are sitting before you, all of you ¹  are a symbol that I am about to introduce my servant, the Branch. ² 

we have unanimously ¹  decided ²  to choose men to send to you along with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul,

Do not avenge yourselves, dear friends, but give place to God’s wrath, ¹  for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” ²  says the Lord.

Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to keep away from fleshly desires that do battle against the soul,

He said, “You may go.” He permitted her to leave ¹  for two months. She went with her friends and mourned her virginity as she walked through the hills. ² 

Because of all my enemies, people disdain me; ¹  my neighbors are appalled by my suffering ²  – those who know me are horrified by my condition; ³  those who see me in the street run away from me.

So, this is what the Lord says: ‘I will assuredly ¹  make these people stumble to their doom. ²  Parents and children will stumble and fall to their destruction. ³  Friends and neighbors will die.’

He asked them to pray for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that he ¹  and his friends would not be destroyed along with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence, ¹ 

Do not be led astray, my dear brothers and sisters. ¹ 

Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. ¹  The old commandment is the word that you have already ²  heard.

Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be ¹  has not yet been revealed. We ²  know that ³  whenever ⁴  it ⁵  is revealed ⁶  we will be like him, because ⁷  we will see him just as he is. ⁸ 

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, ¹  but test ²  the spirits ³  to determine ⁴  if they are from God, because many false prophets ⁵  have gone out into the world.

Dear friends, although I have been eager to write to you ¹  about our common salvation, I now feel compelled ²  instead to write to encourage ³  you to contend earnestly ⁴  for the faith ⁵  that was once for all ⁶  entrusted to the saints. ⁷ 

“To the one in despair, kindness ¹  should come from his friend ²  even if ³  he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.