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VERSES DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND
I've found that there's a lot of truth in saying that the Bible is generally easy to understand. Most of it is pretty straightforward, you know? But, yeah, every now and then you stumble across a passage that really makes you scratch your head. Figuring out what those tricky parts mean can be a real challenge.
Thankfully, I'd say 99% of Scripture is clear as a bell. And that's the stuff we really need to focus on living out. The Bible itself talks about how God's word is meant to be understandable, accessible to everyone.
But let's be real, sometimes we run into those verses that feel a bit murky. Even with all the great commentaries and resources we have available today, including stuff online, even theologians will tell you some passages are just tough nuts to crack.
But I believe that with God's help, and by digging a little deeper with the tools available to us, we can gain a better understanding of even those difficult verses. He'll give us the wisdom we need if we seek it.
No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.
The beggar died, and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.
For the living know that they will die, but the dead don’t know anything, neither do they have any more a reward; for their memory is forgotten.
He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’
Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him; and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
When men began to multiply on the surface of the ground, and daughters were born to them, Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. God saw the earth, and saw that it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. God said to Noah, “I will bring an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them and the earth. Make a ship of gopher wood. You shall make rooms in the ship, and shall seal it inside and outside with pitch. This is how you shall make it. The length of the ship shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. You shall make a roof in the ship, and you shall finish it to a cubit upward. You shall set the door of the ship in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third levels. I, even I, will bring the flood of waters on this earth, to destroy all flesh having the breath of life from under the sky. Everything that is in the earth will die. But I will establish my covenant with you. You shall come into the ship, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. Of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ship, to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. God’s sons saw that men’s daughters were beautiful, and they took any that they wanted for themselves as wives. Of the birds after their kind, of the livestock after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort will come to you, to keep them alive. Take with you some of all food that is eaten, and gather it to yourself; and it will be for food for you, and for them.” Thus Noah did. He did all that God commanded him. The LORD said, “My Spirit will not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; so his days will be one hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when God’s sons came in to men’s daughters and had children with them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,
which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.
“‘Nevertheless these you shall not eat of those that chew the cud, or of those who part the hoof: the camel, because it chews the cud but doesn’t have a parted hoof, is unclean to you. He who eats of its carcass shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening. He also who carries its carcass shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening. “‘Every creeping thing that creeps on the earth is an abomination. It shall not be eaten. Whatever goes on its belly, and whatever goes on all fours, or whatever has many feet, even all creeping things that creep on the earth, them you shall not eat; for they are an abomination. You shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creeps. You shall not make yourselves unclean with them, that you should be defiled by them. For I am the LORD your God. Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any kind of creeping thing that moves on the earth. For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. “‘This is the law of the animal, and of the bird, and of every living creature that moves in the waters, and of every creature that creeps on the earth, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the living thing that may be eaten and the living thing that may not be eaten.’” The hyrax, because it chews the cud but doesn’t have a parted hoof, is unclean to you. The hare, because it chews the cud but doesn’t have a parted hoof, is unclean to you. The pig, because it has a split hoof, and is cloven-footed, but doesn’t chew the cud, is unclean to you. You shall not eat their meat. You shall not touch their carcasses. They are unclean to you.
The LORD said to Moses, “Make a venomous snake, and set it on a pole. It shall happen that everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” Moses made a serpent of bronze, and set it on the pole. If a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked at the serpent of bronze, he lived.
But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come on you and overtake you. You will be cursed in the city, and you will be cursed in the field. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed. You will be cursed when you come in, and you will be cursed when you go out. All these blessings will come upon you, and overtake you, if you listen to the LORD your God’s voice. The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me. The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land where you go in to possess it. The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish. Your sky that is over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron. The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust. It will come down on you from the sky, until you are destroyed. The LORD will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth amongst all the kingdoms of the earth. Your dead bodies will be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there will be no one to frighten them away. The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumours, with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed. The LORD will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with astonishment of heart. You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you. You shall be blessed in the city, and you shall be blessed in the field. You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit. Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand. A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always, so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad. The LORD will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone. You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword amongst all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away. You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it. You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them. You shall be blessed in the fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the fruit of your animals, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock. You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. Locusts will consume all of your trees and the fruit of your ground. The foreigner who is amongst you will mount up above you higher and higher, and you will come down lower and lower. He will lend to you, and you won’t lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail. All these curses will come on you, and will pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. They will be for a sign and for a wonder to you and to your offspring forever. Because you didn’t serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; therefore you will serve your enemies whom the LORD sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand, Your basket and your kneading trough shall be blessed. a nation of fierce facial expressions, that doesn’t respect the elderly, nor show favour to the young. They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish. They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you. The man who is tender amongst you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil towards his brother, towards the wife whom he loves, and towards the remnant of his children whom he has remaining, so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates. The tender and delicate woman amongst you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil towards the husband that she loves, towards her son, towards her daughter, towards her young one who comes out from between her feet, and towards her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates. If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD your God, then the LORD will make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring fearful, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration. You shall be blessed when you come in, and you shall be blessed when you go out. He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring them on you until you are destroyed. You will be left few in number, even though you were as the stars of the sky for multitude, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice. It will happen that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess. The LORD will scatter you amongst all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone. Amongst these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul. Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be afraid night and day, and will have no assurance of your life. In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you will say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you will fear, and for the sights which your eyes will see. The LORD will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I told you that you would never see it again. There you will offer yourselves to your enemies for male and female slaves, and nobody will buy you.
But Jesus answered them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.
Jesus answered them, “Isn’t this because you are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God?
Jephthah vowed a vow to the LORD, and said, “If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be, that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.”
The LORD of Armies says, ‘I remember what Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way when he came up out of Egypt. Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the LORD’s voice, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and cattle, the best of the devoted things, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal.” Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the LORD’s voice? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because you have rejected the LORD’s word, he has also rejected you from being king.” Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD.” Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you; for you have rejected the LORD’s word, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel.” As Samuel turned around to go away, Saul grabbed the skirt of his robe, and it tore. Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbour of yours who is better than you. Also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent.” Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and don’t spare them; but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing baby, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”
When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached for God’s ark and took hold of it, for the cattle stumbled. The LORD’s anger burnt against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by God’s ark.
As they continued on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn’t understand.
Don’t answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.
For that which happens to the sons of men happens to animals. Even one thing happens to them. As the one dies, so the other dies. Yes, they have all one breath; and man has no advantage over the animals, for all is vanity. a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; All go to one place. All are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Make the heart of this people fat. Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.”
But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.
For I know the thoughts that I think towards you,” says the LORD, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future.
The LORD’s hand was on me, and he brought me out in the LORD’s Spirit, and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up on their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost. We are completely cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and tell them, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. You will know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people. I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live. Then I will place you in your own land; and you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken it and performed it,” says the LORD.’”
“Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. “Know therefore and discern that from the going out of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem to the Anointed One, the prince, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times. After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One will be cut off, and will have nothing. The people of the prince who come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will be with a flood, and war will be even to the end. Desolations are determined. He will make a firm covenant with many for one week. In the middle of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease. On the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate; and even to the decreed full end, wrath will be poured out on the desolate.”
When the LORD spoke at first by Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking the LORD.” So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived, and bore him a son.
Does the trumpet alarm sound in a city, without the people being afraid? Does evil happen to a city, and the LORD hasn’t done it?
He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does the LORD require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
“Awake, sword, against my shepherd, and against the man who is close to me,” says the LORD of Armies. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; and I will turn my hand against the little ones. It shall happen that in all the land,” says the LORD, “two parts in it will be cut off and die; but the third will be left in it. I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will test them like gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say, ‘It is my people;’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’”
If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna.
“Don’t think that I came to send peace on the earth. I didn’t come to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at odds against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s foes will be those of his own household.
If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life maimed or crippled, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the eternal fire. If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire.
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into God’s Kingdom.”
About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
He said to them, “To you is given the mystery of God’s Kingdom, but to those who are outside, all things are done in parables, that ‘seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest perhaps they should turn again, and their sins should be forgiven them.’”
“If anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can’t be my disciple.
The Lord said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have all of you, that he might sift you as wheat, but I prayed for you, that your faith wouldn’t fail. You, when once you have turned again, establish your brothers.”
Jesus therefore said to them, “Most certainly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life in yourselves. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will also live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven—not as our fathers ate the manna and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, She fell down immediately at his feet and died. The young men came in and found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her by her husband. Great fear came on the whole assembly, and on all who heard these things.
but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong. God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that don’t exist, that he might bring to nothing the things that exist, that no flesh should boast before God.
For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy way eats and drinks judgement to himself if he doesn’t discern the Lord’s body.
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Because it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer on his behalf,
Let no one rob you of your prize by self-abasement and worshipping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding firmly to the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God’s growth.
but she will be saved through her childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with sobriety.
Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness,
For concerning those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify the Son of God for themselves again, and put him to open shame.
in whom he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, seeing your pure behaviour in fear. who before were disobedient when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ship was being built. In it, few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.
If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for those who sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I don’t say that he should make a request concerning this.
“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.
All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been killed.
keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children’s children, on the third and on the fourth generation.”
‘The LORD is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.’
If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they chasten him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place. then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure to the cities which are around him who is slain. They shall tell the elders of his city, “This our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” All the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall remove the evil from amongst you. All Israel shall hear, and fear.
But the men wouldn’t listen to him; so the man grabbed his concubine, and brought her out to them; and they had sex with her, and abused her all night until the morning. When the day began to dawn, they let her go. Then the woman came in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her lord was, until it was light. Her lord rose up in the morning and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way; and behold, the woman his concubine had fallen down at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, “Get up, and let’s get going!” but no one answered. Then he took her up on the donkey; and the man rose up, and went to his place. When he had come into his house, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, and divided her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout all the borders of Israel. Her husband arose and went after her to speak kindly to her, to bring her again, having his servant with him and a couple of donkeys. She brought him into her father’s house; and when the father of the young lady saw him, he rejoiced to meet him. It was so, that all who saw it said, “Such a deed has not been done or seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt to this day! Consider it, take counsel, and speak.”
At evening, David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to look at. it shall be that, if the king’s wrath arise, and he asks you, ‘Why did you go so near to the city to fight? Didn’t you know that they would shoot from the wall? Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Didn’t a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.’” So the messenger went, and came and showed David all that Joab had sent him for. The messenger said to David, “The men prevailed against us, and came out to us into the field; and we were on them even to the entrance of the gate. The shooters shot at your servants from off the wall; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.” Then David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab, ‘Don’t let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Make your battle stronger against the city, and overthrow it.’ Encourage him.” When Uriah’s wife heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. When the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD. David sent and enquired after the woman. One said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, Uriah the Hittite’s wife?” David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in to him, and he lay with her (for she was purified from her uncleanness); and she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.”
Then two women who were prostitutes came to the king, and stood before him. The one woman said, “Oh, my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house. I delivered a child with her in the house. The third day after I delivered, this woman delivered also. We were together. There was no stranger with us in the house, just us two in the house. This woman’s child died in the night, because she lay on it. However, the people sacrificed in the high places, because there was not yet a house built for the LORD’s name. She arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me while your servant slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead; but when I had looked at him in the morning, behold, it was not my son whom I bore.” The other woman said, “No! But the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.” The first one said, “No! But the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.” They argued like this before the king. Then the king said, “One says, ‘This is my son who lives, and your son is the dead one;’ and the other says, ‘No! But your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’” The king said, “Get me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king. The king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.” Then the woman whose the living child was spoke to the king, for her heart yearned over her son, and she said, “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and in no way kill him!” But the other said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours. Divide him.” Then the king answered, “Give the first woman the living child, and definitely do not kill him. She is his mother.” All Israel heard of the judgement which the king had judged; and they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.
He went up from there to Bethel. As he was going up by the way, some youths came out of the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldy! Go up, you baldy!” He looked behind him and saw them, and cursed them in the LORD’s name. Then two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of those youths.
“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble. But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up, so man lies down and doesn’t rise. Until the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep. “Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time and remember me! If a man dies, will he live again? I would wait all the days of my warfare, until my release should come. You would call, and I would answer you. You would have a desire for the work of your hands. But now you count my steps. Don’t you watch over my sin? My disobedience is sealed up in a bag. You fasten up my iniquity. “But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place. The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man. He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue.
The wicked go astray from the womb. They are wayward as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
For my soul was grieved. I was embittered in my heart. I was so senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you.
For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well.
Wisdom is supreme. Get wisdom. Yes, though it costs all your possessions, get understanding.
“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” What does man gain from all his labour in which he labours under the sun?
For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses. For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
“Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.
“Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light. As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him. “The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up.” Won’t the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?
“Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. He called him, and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ A certain beggar, named Lazarus, was taken to his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The beggar died, and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom. He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’ “But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But here he is now comforted and you are in anguish. Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that those who want to pass from here to you are not able, and that no one may cross over from there to us.’ “He said, ‘I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may testify to them, so they won’t also come into this place of torment.’ “But Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’ “The manager said within himself, ‘What will I do, seeing that my lord is taking away the management position from me? I don’t have strength to dig. I am ashamed to beg. “He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ “He said to him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.’”
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only born Son of God.
He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons and the boundaries of their dwellings,
For being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls, it was said to her, “The elder will serve the younger.” Even as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements, and his ways past tracing out! “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?” “Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?” For of him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.
But as it is written, “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.”
Or else what will they do who are baptised for the dead? If the dead aren’t raised at all, why then are they baptised for the dead?
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without defect before him in love,
Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be a loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith,
For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. and through him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they will in no way escape.
Without controversy, the mystery of godliness is great: God was revealed in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached amongst the nations, believed on in the world, and received up in glory.
Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth.
For there are also many unruly men, vain talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped: men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for dishonest gain’s sake.
For whoever keeps the whole law, and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
He who overcomes will be arrayed in white garments, and I will in no way blot his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
I saw a great white throne and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them. I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his works. Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. If anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.”
I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book. If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book.