They both lived good lives in God's sight and obeyed fully all the Lord's laws and commands.

What I say is this: let the Spirit direct your lives, and you will not satisfy the desires of the human nature.

The Spirit has given us life; he must also control our lives.

I urge you, then---I who am a prisoner because I serve the Lord: live a life that measures up to the standard God set when he called you.

In the Lord's name, then, I warn you: do not continue to live like the heathen, whose thoughts are worthless

Your life must be controlled by love, just as Christ loved us and gave his life for us as a sweet-smelling offering and sacrifice that pleases God.

You yourselves used to be in the darkness, but since you have become the Lord's people, you are in the light. So you must live like people who belong to the light,

So be careful how you live. Don't live like ignorant people, but like wise people.

Now, the important thing is that your way of life should be as the gospel of Christ requires, so that, whether or not I am able to go and see you, I will hear that you are standing firm with one common purpose and that with only one desire you are fighting together for the faith of the gospel.

However that may be, let us go forward according to the same rules we have followed until now.

I have told you this many times before, and now I repeat it with tears: there are many whose lives make them enemies of Christ's death on the cross.

We, however, are citizens of heaven, and we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from heaven.

In conclusion, my friends, fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honorable.

Put into practice what you learned and received from me, both from my words and from my actions. And the God who gives us peace will be with you.

Then you will be able to live as the Lord wants and will always do what pleases him. Your lives will produce all kinds of good deeds, and you will grow in your knowledge of God.

We encouraged you, we comforted you, and we kept urging you to live the kind of life that pleases God, who calls you to share in his own Kingdom and glory.

In this way you will win the respect of those who are not believers, and you will not have to depend on anyone for what you need.

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.

if we say that we remain in union with God, we should live just as Jesus Christ did.

How happy I was to find that some of your children live in the truth, just as the Father commanded us.

These people are not drunk, as you suppose; it is only nine o'clock in the morning.

pray at all times,

and they will be paid with suffering for the suffering they have caused. Pleasure for them is to do anything in broad daylight that will satisfy their bodily appetites; they are a shame and a disgrace as they join you in your meals, all the while enjoying their deceitful ways!

Don't associate with people who drink too much wine or stuff themselves with food.

The Sovereign LORD Almighty was calling you then to weep and mourn, to shave your heads and wear sackcloth.

Instead, you laughed and celebrated. You killed sheep and cattle to eat, and you drank wine. You said, "We might as well eat and drink! Tomorrow we'll be dead."

Even the prophets and the priests are so drunk that they stagger. They have drunk so much wine and liquor that they stumble in confusion. The prophets are too drunk to understand the visions that God sends, and the priests are too drunk to decide the cases that are brought to them.

The tables where they sit are all covered with vomit, and not a clean spot is left.

How terrible it will be for you that stretch out on your luxurious couches, feasting on veal and lamb!

You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest perfumes, but you do not mourn over the ruin of Israel.

But if he is a bad servant, he will tell himself that his master will not come back for a long time,

Then that servant's master will come back one day when the servant does not expect him and at a time he does not know.

"There was once a rich man who dressed in the most expensive clothes and lived in great luxury every day.

Everybody kept on eating and drinking, and men and women married, up to the very day Noah went into the boat and the flood came and killed them all.

It will be as it was in the time of Lot. Everybody kept on eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.

"Be careful not to let yourselves become occupied with too much feasting and drinking and with the worries of this life, or that Day may suddenly catch you

or who steal or are greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves---none of these will possess God's Kingdom.

they are envious, get drunk, have orgies, and do other things like these. I warn you now as I have before: those who do these things will not possess the Kingdom of God.

Do not get drunk with wine, which will only ruin you; instead, be filled with the Spirit.

I appeal to you, my friends, as strangers and refugees in this world! Do not give in to bodily passions, which are always at war against the soul.

You have spent enough time in the past doing what the heathen like to do. Your lives were spent in indecency, lust, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and the disgusting worship of idols.

But they will have to give an account of themselves to God, who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts

or who steal or are greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves---none of these will possess God's Kingdom.

What human nature does is quite plain. It shows itself in immoral, filthy, and indecent actions;

Since you are God's people, it is not right that any matters of sexual immorality or indecency or greed should even be mentioned among you.

You may be sure that no one who is immoral, indecent, or greedy (for greed is a form of idolatry) will ever receive a share in the Kingdom of Christ and of God.

You must put to death, then, the earthly desires at work in you, such as sexual immorality, indecency, lust, evil passions, and greed (for greed is a form of idolatry).

God wants you to be holy and completely free from sexual immorality.

not with a lustful desire, like the heathen who do not know God.

They want to look for nothing but the chance to commit adultery; their appetite for sin is never satisfied. They lead weak people into a trap. Their hearts are trained to be greedy. They are under God's curse!

They make proud and stupid statements, and use immoral bodily lusts to trap those who are just beginning to escape from among people who live in error.

If people have escaped from the corrupting forces of the world through their knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then are again caught and conquered by them, such people are in worse condition at the end than they were at the beginning.

save others by snatching them out of the fire; and to others show mercy mixed with fear, but hate their very clothes, stained by their sinful lusts.

But if you act like wild animals, hurting and harming each other, then watch out, or you will completely destroy one another.

they are envious, get drunk, have orgies, and do other things like these. I warn you now as I have before: those who do these things will not possess the Kingdom of God.

We must not be proud or irritate one another or be jealous of one another.

Don't do anything from selfish ambition or from a cheap desire to boast, but be humble toward one another, always considering others better than yourselves.

But if in your heart you are jealous, bitter, and selfish, don't sin against the truth by boasting of your wisdom.

Where there is jealousy and selfishness, there is also disorder and every kind of evil.

Don't think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, "The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires."

Rid yourselves, then, of all evil; no more lying or hypocrisy or jealousy or insulting language.

Be like newborn babies, always thirsty for the pure spiritual milk, so that by drinking it you may grow up and be saved.