Those who want to make a good showing in external matters ¹  are trying to force you to be circumcised. They do so ²  only to avoid being persecuted ³  for the cross of Christ.

But false prophets arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. ¹  These false teachers ²  will ³  infiltrate your midst ⁴  with destructive heresies, ⁵  even to the point of ⁶  denying the Master who bought them. As a result, they will bring ⁷  swift destruction on themselves.

For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment that had been delivered to them.

(My little children, ¹  I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. ² ) But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate ³  with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous One, ⁴ 

On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you which is true in him ¹  and in you, because ²  the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. ³ 

The one who practices sin is of the devil, ¹  because the devil has been sinning ²  from the beginning. For this purpose ³  the Son of God was revealed: to destroy ⁴  the works of the devil.

(Now this is love: that we walk ¹  according to his commandments.) This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning; thus ²  you should walk in it. ³ 

So the royal scribes ¹  were summoned in the first month, on the thirteenth day of the month. Everything Haman commanded was written to the king’s satraps ²  and governors who were in every province and to the officials of every people, province by province according to its script and people by people according to its language. In the name of King Ahasuerus it was written and sealed with the king’s signet ring.

The king’s scribes were quickly ¹  summoned – in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day. ²  They wrote out ³  everything that Mordecai instructed to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces all the way from India to Ethiopia ⁴  – a hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all – to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, and to the Jews according to their own script and their own language.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought ruin ¹  on me by making me a foul odor ²  among the inhabitants of the land – among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I ³  am few in number; they will join forces against me and attack me, and both I and my family will be destroyed!”

When he told his father and his brothers, his father rebuked him, saying, “What is this dream that you had? ¹  Will I, your mother, and your brothers really come and bow down to you?” ² 

Then Joseph said to his brothers and his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh, ¹  ‘My brothers and my father’s household who were in the land of Canaan have come to me.

Take a branch of hyssop, ¹  dip it in the blood that is in the basin, ²  and apply to the top of the doorframe and the two side posts some of the blood that is in the basin. Not one of you is to go out ³  the door of his house until morning.

¹ When Pharaoh released ²  the people, God did not lead them ³  by the way to the land ⁴  of the Philistines, ⁵  although ⁶  that was nearby, for God said, ⁷  “Lest ⁸  the people change their minds ⁹  and return to Egypt when they experience war.”

In the tent of meeting ¹  outside the curtain that is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons are to arrange it from evening ²  to morning before the Lord. This is to be a lasting ordinance among the Israelites for generations to come. ³ 

These must be on Aaron and his sons when they enter ¹  to the tent of meeting, or when they approach ²  the altar to minister in the Holy Place, so that they bear no iniquity and die. ³  It is to be a perpetual ordinance for him and for his descendants ⁴  after him. ⁵ 

Then Moses said to Aaron and his sons, “Boil the meat at the entrance of the Meeting Tent, and there you are to eat it and the bread which is in the ordination offering basket, just as I have commanded, ¹  saying, ‘Aaron and his sons are to eat it,’

and the Lord said to Moses: “Tell Aaron your brother that he must not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil-canopy ¹  in front of the atonement plate ²  that is on the ark so that he may not die, for I will appear in the cloud over the atonement plate.

“This is to be a perpetual statute for you. ¹  In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you must humble yourselves ²  and do no work of any kind, ³  both the native citizen and the foreigner who resides ⁴  in your midst,

but has not brought it to the entrance of the Meeting Tent ¹  to present it as ²  an offering to the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord. He has shed blood, so that man will be cut off from the midst of his people. ³