American Standard Version of 1901
Versliste
And thus shall ye eat it: with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is Jehovah's passover.
Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning;
For whether we {Or, were}are beside ourselves, it is unto God; or whether we are of sober mind, it is unto you.
And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled {Or, in spirit}with the Spirit;
For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that are drunken are drunken in the night.
But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.
But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore of sound mind, and be sober unto {Greek: prayers.}prayer:
Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour,
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward.
For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God.
Finally then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as ye received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, even as ye do walk,— that ye abound more and more.
For ye know what {Greek: charges.}charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication;
that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who know not God;
that no man {Or, overreach}transgress, and wrong his brother in the matter: because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we {Or, told you plainly}forewarned you and testified.
For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification.
Therefore he that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you.
But concerning love of the brethren ye have no need that one write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another;
for indeed ye do it toward all the brethren that are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more;
and that ye {Greek: be ambitious. See Romans 15:20 margin.}study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you;
that ye may walk becomingly toward them that are without, and may have need of nothing.
But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, who have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep {Greek: through. Or, will God through Jesus}in Jesus will God bring with him.
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the {Or, presence}coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first;
then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore {Or, exhort chapter 5:11.}comfort one another with these words.
For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, {Many ancient authorities read they can.}can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh.
Else would they not have ceased to be offered? because the worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins.
But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year.
For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.
Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, {Psalm 11:6 ff}Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not,But a body didst thou prepare for me;
In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure:
Then said I, Lo, I am come(In the roll of the book it is written of me)To do thy will, O God.
Saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein (the which are offered according to the law),
then hath he said, Lo, I am come to do thy will. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
{Or, In}By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
And every {Some ancient authorities read high priest.}priest indeed standeth day by day ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, the which can never take away sins:
but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for {Or, sins, for ever sat down &c.}sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
henceforth expecting till his enemies be made the footstool of his feet.
For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
And the Holy Spirit also beareth witness to us; for after he hath said,
{Jeremiah 31:33 f.}This is the covenant that {Greek: I will covenant.}I will make with themAfter those days, saith the Lord:I will put my laws on their heart,And upon their mind also will I write them;then saith he,
And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
and having a great priest over the house of God;
let us draw near with a true heart in {Or, full assurance}fulness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil {Or, conscience, and our body washed with pure water: let us hold fast}conscience: and having our body washed with pure water,
let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not; for he is faithful that promised:
and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works;
not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh.
For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins,
but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a {Or, jealously}fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries.
A man that hath set at nought Moses' law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses:
of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified {Greek: a common thing.}an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
For we know him that said, {Deuteronomy 32:35}Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense. And again, {Deuteronomy 32:36}The Lord shall judge his people.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were enlightened, ye endured a great conflict of sufferings;
partly, being made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, becoming partakers with them that were so used.
For ye both had compassion on them that were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions, knowing that {Many ancient authorities read ye have your own selves for a better possession &c. Compare Luke 9:25; 21:19.}ye have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one.
Cast not away therefore your boldness, which hath great recompense of reward.
For ye have need of {Or, stedfastness}patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise.
{Habakkuk 2:3 f.}For yet a very little while,He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry.
But {Some ancient authorities read the righteous one.}my righteous one shall live by faith:And if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him.
But we are not {Greek: of shrinking back.}of them that shrink back unto perdition; but of them that have faith unto the {Or, gaining}saving of the soul.
Jehovah of hosts, him shall ye sanctify; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
And {Or, many among them shall stumble, and fall &c.}many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
Bind thou up the testimony, seal the {Or, teaching}law among my disciples.
And I will wait for Jehovah, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
Behold, I and the children whom Jehovah hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from Jehovah of hosts, who dwelleth in mount Zion.
For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?