My wo `is' to me, for I have been As gatherings of summer-fruit, As gleanings of harvest, There is no cluster to eat, The first-ripe fruit desired hath my soul.
Who `is' even among you, And he shutteth the two-leaved doors? Yea, ye do not kindle Mine altar for nought, I have no pleasure in you, said Jehovah of Hosts, And a present I do not accept of your hand.
`Ye did not choose out me, but I chose out you, and did appoint you, that ye might go away, and might bear fruit, and your fruit might remain, that whatever ye may ask of the Father in my name, He may give you.
Necessary, therefore, I thought `it' to exhort the brethren, that they may go before to you, and may make up before your formerly announced blessing, that this be ready, as a blessing, and not as covetousness.
for a root of all the evils is the love of money, which certain longing for did go astray from the faith, and themselves did pierce through with many sorrows;
for it behoveth the overseer to be blameless, as God's steward, not self-pleased, nor irascible, not given to wine, not a striker, not given to filthy lucre;
for God is not unrighteous to forget your work, and the labour of the love, that ye shewed to His name, having ministered to the saints and ministering;
and in covetousness, with moulded words, of you they shall make merchandise, whose judgment of old is not idle, and their destruction doth not slumber.
wo to them! because in the way of Cain they did go on, and to the deceit of Balaam for reward they did rush, and in the gainsaying of Korah they did perish.