Stop it, my sons! This is an awful thing the people of the LORD are talking about!

Violent people deceive their friends and lead them to disaster.

It is not right to make an innocent person pay a fine; justice is perverted when good people are punished.

It is not right to favor the guilty and keep the innocent from receiving justice.

Enthusiasm without knowledge is not good; impatience will get you into trouble.

The wise have also said these things: It is wrong for judges to be prejudiced.

Every governor who had been in office before me had been a burden to the people and had demanded forty silver coins a day for food and wine. Even their servants had oppressed the people. But I acted differently, because I honored God.

Abraham answered, "I thought that there would be no one here who has reverence for God and that they would kill me to get my wife.

On the third day Joseph said to them, "I am a God-fearing man, and I will spare your lives on one condition.

Do not charge Israelites any interest, but obey God and let them live near you.

And so it was that the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had a time of peace. Through the help of the Holy Spirit it was strengthened and grew in numbers, as it lived in reverence for the Lord.

So quarrels broke out between the men who took care of Abram's animals and those who took care of Lot's animals. (At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were still living in the land.)

Then Abram said to Lot, "We are relatives, and your men and my men shouldn't be quarreling.

But because you have shown such contempt for the LORD in doing this, your child will die."

Wherever they went, they brought disgrace on my holy name, because people would say, 'These are the people of the LORD, but they had to leave his land.'

The scripture says, "Because of you Jews, the Gentiles speak evil of God."

So I would prefer that the younger widows get married, have children, and take care of their homes, so as to give our enemies no chance of speaking evil of us.

to be self-controlled and pure, and to be good housewives who submit themselves to their husbands, so that no one will speak evil of the message that comes from God.

Your conduct among the heathen should be so good that when they accuse you of being evildoers, they will have to recognize your good deeds and so praise God on the Day of his coming.