¹‘You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the Lᴏʀᴅ your God. ²You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lᴏʀᴅ. ³‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, ⁴then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. ⁵Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. ⁶I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land. ⁷You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. ⁸Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you. ⁹‘For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you. ¹⁰You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new. ¹¹I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you. ¹²I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. ¹³I am the Lᴏʀᴅ your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright. ¹⁴‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, ¹⁵and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, ¹⁶I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. ¹⁷I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you. ¹⁸‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. ¹⁹I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. ²⁰And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit. ²¹‘Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins. ²²I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate. ²³‘And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me, ²⁴then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins. ²⁵And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. ²⁷‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me, ²⁸then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. ²⁹You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. ³¹I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas. ³²I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. ³³I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. ³⁴Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths. ³⁵As long as it lies desolate it shall rest— for the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it. ³⁶‘And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. ³⁷They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. ³⁹And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; also in their fathers’ iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away. ⁴⁰‘But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me, ⁴¹and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt— ⁴²then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land. ⁴³The land also shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; they will accept their guilt, because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes. ⁴⁴Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the Lᴏʀᴅ their God. ⁴⁵But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lᴏʀᴅ.’ ” ⁴⁶These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the Lᴏʀᴅ made between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

¹Rejoice in the Lᴏʀᴅ, O you righteous! For praise from the upright is beautiful. ²Praise the Lᴏʀᴅ with the harp; Make melody to Him with an instrument of ten strings. ³Sing to Him a new song; Play skillfully with a shout of joy. ⁴For the word of the Lᴏʀᴅ is right, And all His work is done in truth. ⁵He loves righteousness and justice; The earth is full of the goodness of the Lᴏʀᴅ. ⁶By the word of the Lᴏʀᴅ the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. ⁷He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deep in storehouses. ⁸Let all the earth fear the Lᴏʀᴅ; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. ⁹For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. ¹⁰The Lᴏʀᴅ brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. ¹¹The counsel of the Lᴏʀᴅ stands forever, The plans of His heart to all generations. ¹²Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lᴏʀᴅ, The people He has chosen as His own inheritance. ¹³The Lᴏʀᴅ looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. ¹⁴From the place of His dwelling He looks On all the inhabitants of the earth; ¹⁵He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works. ¹⁶No king is saved by the multitude of an army; A mighty man is not delivered by great strength. ¹⁷A horse is a vain hope for safety; Neither shall it deliver any by its great strength. ¹⁸Behold, the eye of the Lᴏʀᴅ is on those who fear Him, On those who hope in His mercy, ¹⁹To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine. ²⁰Our soul waits for the Lᴏʀᴅ; He is our help and our shield. ²¹For our heart shall rejoice in Him, Because we have trusted in His holy name. ²²Let Your mercy, O Lᴏʀᴅ, be upon us, Just as we hope in You.

¹For I considered all this in my heart, so that I could declare it all: that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. People know neither love nor hatred by anything they see before them. ²All things come alike to all: One event happens to the righteous and the wicked; To the good, the clean, and the unclean; To him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; He who takes an oath as he who fears an oath. ³This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that one thing happens to all. Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. ⁴But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. ⁵For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, For the memory of them is forgotten. ⁶Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; Nevermore will they have a share In anything done under the sun. ⁷Go, eat your bread with joy, And drink your wine with a merry heart; For God has already accepted your works. ⁸Let your garments always be white, And let your head lack no oil. ⁹Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun. ¹⁰Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going. ¹¹I returned and saw under the sun that— The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all. ¹²For man also does not know his time: Like fish taken in a cruel net, Like birds caught in a snare, So the sons of men are snared in an evil time, When it falls suddenly upon them. ¹³This wisdom I have also seen under the sun, and it seemed great to me: ¹⁴There was a little city with few men in it; and a great king came against it, besieged it, and built great snares around it. ¹⁵Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that same poor man. ¹⁶Then I said: “Wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, And his words are not heard. ¹⁷Words of the wise, spoken quietly, should be heard Rather than the shout of a ruler of fools. ¹⁸Wisdom is better than weapons of war; But one sinner destroys much good.”

¹Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness, ²in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, ³but has in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior; ⁴To Titus, a true son in our common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. ⁵For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you— ⁶if a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination. ⁷For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, ⁸but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, ⁹holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict. ¹⁰For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, ¹¹whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain. ¹²One of them, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” ¹³This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, ¹⁴not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. ¹⁵To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. ¹⁶They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.