Your sons might marry those foreign women, who would lead them to be unfaithful to me and to worship their pagan gods.

"Obey my commands. Do not crossbreed domestic animals. Do not plant two kinds of seed in the same field. Do not wear clothes made of two kinds of material.

When the LORD your God places these people in your power and you defeat them, you must put them all to death. Do not make an alliance with them or show them any mercy.

Do not marry any of them, and do not let your children marry any of them,

"Do not plant any crop in the same field with your grapevines; if you do, you are forbidden to use either the grapes or the produce of the other crop.

"Do not wear cloth made by weaving wool and linen together.

After all this had been done, some of the leaders of the people of Israel came and told me that the people, the priests, and the Levites had not kept themselves separate from the people in the neighboring countries of Ammon, Moab, and Egypt or from the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, and Amorites. They were doing the same disgusting things which these people did.

Jewish men were marrying foreign women, and so God's holy people had become contaminated. The leaders and officials were the chief offenders.

that you gave us through your servants, the prophets. They told us that the land we were going to occupy was an impure land because the people who lived in it filled it from one end to the other with disgusting, filthy actions.

They told us that we were never to intermarry with those people and never to help them prosper or succeed if we wanted to enjoy the land and pass it on to our descendants forever.

They promised to divorce their wives, and they offered a ram as a sacrifice for their sins.

When the Law of Moses was being read aloud to the people, they came to the passage that said that no Ammonite or Moabite was ever to be permitted to join God's people.

When the people of Israel heard this law read, they excluded all foreigners from the community.

At that time I also discovered that many of the Jewish men had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

I reprimanded the men, called down curses on them, beat them, and pulled out their hair. Then I made them take an oath in God's name that never again would they or their children intermarry with foreigners.

but they intermarried with them and adopted their pagan ways.

Don't make friends with people who have hot, violent tempers.

The people of Judah have broken their promise to God and done a horrible thing in Jerusalem and all over the country. They have defiled the Temple which the LORD loves. Men have married women who worship foreign gods.

Didn't God make you one body and spirit with her? What was his purpose in this? It was that you should have children who are truly God's people. So make sure that none of you breaks his promise to his wife.

In the letter that I wrote you I told you not to associate with immoral people.

A married woman is not free as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, then she is free to be married to any man she wishes, but only if he is a Christian.

Do not be fooled. "Bad companions ruin good character."

Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.

took it into the temple of their god Dagon, and set it up beside his statue.

Early the next morning the people of Ashdod saw that the statue of Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground in front of the LORD's Covenant Box. So they lifted it up and put it back in its place.

Elijah went up to the people and said, "How much longer will it take you to make up your minds? If the LORD is God, worship him; but if Baal is God, worship him!" But the people didn't say a word.

A prophet, Jehu son of Hanani, went to meet the king and said to him, "Do you think it is right to help those who are wicked and to take the side of those who hate the LORD? What you have done has brought the LORD's anger on you.

How excellent are the LORD's faithful people! My greatest pleasure is to be with them.

I do not keep company with worthless people; I have nothing to do with hypocrites.

I hate the company of the evil and avoid the wicked.

Do not destroy me with the sinners; spare me from the fate of murderers---

those who do evil all the time and are always ready to take bribes.

If we had stopped worshiping our God and prayed to a foreign god,

you would surely have discovered it, because you know our secret thoughts.

and will never tolerate evil. I hate the actions of those who turn away from God; I will have nothing to do with them.

I will get rid of anyone who whispers evil things about someone else; I will not tolerate anyone who is proud and arrogant.

I am a friend of all who serve you, of all who obey your laws.

O LORD, how I hate those who hate you! How I despise those who rebel against you!

I hate them with a total hatred; I regard them as my enemies.

The righteous hate the wicked, and the wicked hate the righteous.

The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I keep telling it that its ways are bad.

"If the world hates you, just remember that it has hated me first.

If you belonged to the world, then the world would love you as its own. But I chose you from this world, and you do not belong to it; that is why the world hates you.

As soon as Peter and John were set free, they returned to their group and told them what the chief priests and the elders had said.

You cannot drink from the Lord's cup and also from the cup of demons; you cannot eat at the Lord's table and also at the table of demons.

Do not let anyone deceive you with foolish words; it is because of these very things that God's anger will come upon those who do not obey him.

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,

Try to learn what pleases the Lord.

We must not be like Cain; he belonged to the Evil One and murdered his own brother Abel. Why did Cain murder him? Because the things he himself did were wrong, and the things his brother did were right.

We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know it because we love others. Those who do not love are still under the power of death.

I have riches and honor to give, prosperity and success.

What you get from me is better than the finest gold, better than the purest silver.

The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light.

But take up the weapons of the Lord Jesus Christ, and stop paying attention to your sinful nature and satisfying its desires.

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

They have lost all feeling of shame; they give themselves over to vice and do all sorts of indecent things without restraint.

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,

Try to learn what pleases the Lord.

(It is really too shameful even to talk about the things they do in secret.)

for anything that is clearly revealed becomes light. That is why it is said, "Wake up, sleeper, and rise from death, and Christ will shine on you."

so that you may be innocent and pure as God's perfect children, who live in a world of corrupt and sinful people. You must shine among them like stars lighting up the sky,

But you, friends, are not in the darkness, and the Day should not take you by surprise like a thief.

So then, we should not be sleeping like the others; we should be awake and sober.

But we belong to the day, and we should be sober. We must wear faith and love as a breastplate, and our hope of salvation as a helmet.

But you are the chosen race, the King's priests, the holy nation, God's own people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his own marvelous light.

At one time you were not God's people, but now you are his people; at one time you did not know God's mercy, but now you have received his mercy.

From now on, then, you must live the rest of your earthly lives controlled by God's will and not by human desires.

And now the heathen are surprised when you do not join them in the same wild and reckless living, and so they insult you.

Now the message that we have heard from his Son and announce is this: God is light, and there is no darkness at all in him.

But if we live in the light---just as he is in the light---then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin.