Some time later God tested Abraham; he called to him, "Abraham!" And Abraham answered, "Yes, here I am!"

"Take your son," God said, "your only son, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah. There on a mountain that I will show you, offer him as a sacrifice to me."

Some years later, at harvest time, the boy went out one morning to join his father, who was in the field with the harvest workers.

The servant carried the boy back to his mother, who held him in her lap until noon, at which time he died.

"I will fill the descendants of David and the other people of Jerusalem with the spirit of mercy and the spirit of prayer. They will look at the one whom they stabbed to death, and they will mourn for him like those who mourn for an only child. They will mourn bitterly, like those who have lost their first-born son.

The sisters sent Jesus a message: "Lord, your dear friend is sick."

When Jesus heard it, he said, "The final result of this sickness will not be the death of Lazarus; this has happened in order to bring glory to God, and it will be the means by which the Son of God will receive glory."

So Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead,

My friends, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way,

Make sure that your endurance carries you all the way without failing, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

Their purpose is to prove that your faith is genuine. Even gold, which can be destroyed, is tested by fire; and so your faith, which is much more precious than gold, must also be tested, so that it may endure. Then you will receive praise and glory and honor on the Day when Jesus Christ is revealed.

My dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful test you are suffering, as though something unusual were happening to you.

It is God who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone's life is in his power.

If God took back the breath of life,

When you turn away, they are afraid; when you take away your breath, they die and go back to the dust from which they came.

You acted against the Lord of heaven and brought in the cups and bowls taken from his Temple. You, your noblemen, your wives, and your concubines drank wine out of them and praised gods made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone---gods that cannot see or hear and that do not know anything. But you did not honor the God who determines whether you live or die and who controls everything you do.

So then, as the body without the spirit is dead, also faith without actions is dead.