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Acts
17:22-31
Psalm
66:8-20
1
Peter 3:13-22
John
14:15-21
Acts
17:22-31
17:22 Then Paul stood
in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how
extremely religious you are in every way.
17:23
For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects
of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription,
'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I
proclaim to you.
17:24
The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of
heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands,
17:25
nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything,
since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all
things.
17:26
From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth,
and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of
the places where they would live,
17:27
so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and
find him--though indeed he is not far from each one of us.
17:28
For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of
your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.'
17:29
Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity
is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and
imagination of mortals.
17:30
While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he
commands all people everywhere to repent,
17:31
because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged
in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he
has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
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Psalm
66:8-20
66:8 Bless our God, O
peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard,
66:9
who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.
66:10
For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is
tried.
66:11
You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs;
66:12
you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and
through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.
66:13
I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will pay you
my vows,
66:14
those that my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in
trouble.
66:15
I will offer to you burnt offerings of fatlings, with the smoke of
the sacrifice of rams; I will make an offering of bulls and goats.
Selah
66:16
Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has
done for me.
66:17
I cried aloud to him, and he was extolled with my tongue.
66:18
If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have
listened.
66:19
But truly God has listened; he has given heed to the words of my
prayer.
66:20
Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed
his steadfast love from me.
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1
Peter 3:13-22
3:13 Now who will harm
you if you are eager to do what is good?
3:14
But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are
blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated,
3:15
but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to
make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for
the hope that is in you;
3:16
yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience
clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for
your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.
3:17
For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be
God's will, than to suffer for doing evil.
3:18
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for
the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death
in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,
3:19
in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in
prison,
3:20
who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the
days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that
is, eight persons, were saved through water.
3:21
And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you--not as a
removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good
conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
3:22
who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with
angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
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John
14:15-21
14:15 "If you love
me, you will keep my commandments.
14:16
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate,
to be with you forever.
14:17
This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive,
because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because
he abides with you, and he will be in you.
14:18
"I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
14:19
In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will
see me; because I live, you also will live.
14:20
On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me,
and I in you.
14:21
They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me;
and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love
them and reveal myself to them."
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