Charge those who are rich in this present age not to be arrogant or have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on the living God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
“But y’all be careful, or y’all’s hearts will be weighed down with intoxication, drunkenness, and the worries of this life, and that day will come down on y’all unexpectedly like a trap.
He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in the middle of it, and also cut out a wine press in it. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
For if y’all have these qualities and they are continually increasing, they prevent y’all from being ineffective or unproductive in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is one who is alone, and he has neither son nor brother. There is no end to all of his labor, neither are his eyes satisfied with wealth. “For whom then do I labor and deprive my soul of enjoyment?” This also is emptiness. Yes, it is a miserable business.
They are jagged rocks in y’all’s love feasts, feasting with y’all without fear, shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead and uprooted.
The seed sown among the thorns is the one who hears the word, but the cares of this age and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, making it unfruitful.
Y’all must not be conformed to this world. Instead y’all are to be transformed by the renovation of the mind, so that y’all may test and approve what the will of God is—that which is good, pleasing, and perfect.
in which y’all once walked according to the ways of this world and according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavens.