But now I tell you: do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left cheek too.

And if one of the occupation troops forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two miles.

"This is why I tell you: do not be worried about the food and drink you need in order to stay alive, or about clothes for your body. After all, isn't life worth more than food? And isn't the body worth more than clothes?

So do not worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings.

If anyone hits you on one cheek, let him hit the other one too; if someone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well.

Do for others just what you want them to do for you.

And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners do that!

No! Love your enemies and do good to them; lend and expect nothing back. You will then have a great reward, and you will be children of the Most High God. For he is good to the ungrateful and the wicked.

Then Jesus said to the disciples, "And so I tell you not to worry about the food you need to stay alive or about the clothes you need for your body.

Look at the crows: they don't plant seeds or gather a harvest; they don't have storage rooms or barns; God feeds them! You are worth so much more than birds!

If you can't manage even such a small thing, why worry about the other things?

It is God who clothes the wild grass---grass that is here today and gone tomorrow, burned up in the oven. Won't he be all the more sure to clothe you? What little faith you have!

(For the pagans of this world are always concerned about all these things.) Your Father knows that you need these things.

"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

The very fact that you have legal disputes among yourselves shows that you have failed completely. Would it not be better for you to be wronged? Would it not be better for you to be robbed?

What I mean, my friends, is this: there is not much time left, and from now on married people should live as though they were not married;

those who deal in material goods, as though they were not fully occupied with them. For this world, as it is now, will not last much longer.

So then, if food makes a believer sin, I will never eat meat again, so as not to make a believer fall into sin.

Every athlete in training submits to strict discipline, in order to be crowned with a wreath that will not last; but we do it for one that will last forever.

Tell them not to speak evil of anyone, but to be peaceful and friendly, and always to show a gentle attitude toward everyone.

Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, "I will never leave you; I will never abandon you."

Let us be bold, then, and say, "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?"

They tried to find out when the time would be and how it would come. This was the time to which Christ's Spirit in them was pointing, in predicting the sufferings that Christ would have to endure and the glory that would follow.

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.

For you yourselves know very well that the Day of the Lord will come as a thief comes at night.

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

not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the Day of the Lord has come. Perhaps it is thought that we said this while prophesying or preaching, or that we wrote it in a letter.

Let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as some are doing. Instead, let us encourage one another all the more, since you see that the Day of the Lord is coming nearer.

You also must be patient. Keep your hopes high, for the day of the Lord's coming is near.

Do not complain against one another, my friends, so that God will not judge you. The Judge is near, ready to appear.

The end of all things is near. You must be self-controlled and alert, to be able to pray.

But do not forget one thing, my dear friends! There is no difference in the Lord's sight between one day and a thousand years; to him the two are the same.

But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that Day the heavens will disappear with a shrill noise, the heavenly bodies will burn up and be destroyed, and the earth with everything in it will vanish.

as you wait for the Day of God and do your best to make it come soon---the Day when the heavens will burn up and be destroyed, and the heavenly bodies will be melted by the heat.

And so, my friends, as you wait for that Day, do your best to be pure and faultless in God's sight and to be at peace with him.

"Listen!" says Jesus. "I am coming soon! Happy are those who obey the prophetic words in this book!"

He who gives his testimony to all this says, "Yes indeed! I am coming soon!" So be it. Come, Lord Jesus!