One Year Bible.

Trust in the LORD with All Your Heart

¹My son, do not forget my teaching,

but let your heart keep my commandments;

²for they will add length to your days,

years and peace to your life.

³Never let loving devotion or faithfulness leave you;

bind them around your neck,

write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴Then you will find favor and high regard

in the sight of God and man.

⁵Trust in the LORD with all your heart,

and lean not on your own understanding;

⁶in all your ways acknowledge Him,

and He will make your paths straight.

⁷Be not wise in your own eyes;

fear the LORD and turn away from evil.

⁸This will bring healing to your body

and refreshment to your bones.

⁹Honor the LORD with your wealth

and with the firstfruits of all your crops;

¹⁰then your barns will be filled with plenty,

and your vats will overflow with new wine.

¹¹My son, do not reject the discipline of the LORD,

and do not loathe His rebuke;

¹²for the LORD disciplines the one He loves,

as does a father the son in whom he delights.

The Blessings of Wisdom

¹³Blessed is the man who finds wisdom,

the man who acquires understanding,

¹⁴for she is more profitable than silver,

and her gain is better than fine gold.

¹⁵She is more precious than rubies;

nothing you desire compares with her.

¹⁶Long life is in her right hand;

in her left hand are riches and honor.

¹⁷All her ways are pleasant,

and all her paths are peaceful.

¹⁸She is a tree of life to those who embrace her,

and those who lay hold of her are blessed.

¹⁹The LORD founded the earth by wisdom

and established the heavens by understanding.

²⁰By His knowledge the watery depths were broken open,

and the clouds dripped with dew.

²¹My son, do not lose sight of this:

Preserve sound judgment and discernment.

²²They will be life to your soul

and adornment to your neck.

²³Then you will go on your way in safety,

and your foot will not stumble.

²⁴When you lie down, you will not be afraid;

when you rest, your sleep will be sweet.

²⁵Do not fear sudden danger

or the ruin that overtakes the wicked,

²⁶for the LORD will be your confidence

and will keep your foot from the snare.

²⁷Do not withhold good from the deserving

when it is within your power to act.

²⁸Do not tell your neighbor,

“Come back tomorrow and I will provide”—

when you already have the means.

²⁹Do not devise evil against your neighbor,

for he trustfully dwells beside you.

³⁰Do not accuse a man without cause,

when he has done you no harm.

³¹Do not envy a violent man

or choose any of his ways;

³²for the LORD detests the perverse,

but He is a friend to the upright.

³³The curse of the LORD is on the house of the wicked,

but He blesses the home of the righteous.

³⁴He mocks the mockers,

but gives grace to the humble.

³⁵The wise will inherit honor,

but fools are held up to shame.

Release from the Law

¹Do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? ²For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. ³So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

⁴Therefore, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. ⁵For when we lived according to the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, bearing fruit for death. ⁶But now, having died to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

God’s Law Is Holy

⁷What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed, I would not have been mindful of sin if not for the law. For I would not have been aware of coveting if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” ⁸But sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from the law, sin is dead.

⁹Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. ¹⁰So I discovered that the very commandment that was meant to bring life actually brought death. ¹¹For sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through the commandment put me to death.

¹²So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.

Struggling with Sin

¹³Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Certainly not! But in order that sin might be exposed as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

¹⁴We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I admit that the law is good. ¹⁷In that case, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do. ²⁰And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹So this is the principle I have discovered: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²²For in my inner being I delight in God’s law. ²³But I see another law at work in my body, warring against the law of my mind and holding me captive to the law of sin that dwells within me.

²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Paul’s Greeting to the Ephesians

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:

²Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Blessings

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. ⁴For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love ⁵He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, ⁶to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One.

⁷In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace ⁸that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. ⁹And He has made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ ¹⁰as a plan for the fullness of time, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together in Christ.

¹¹In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will, ¹²in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, would be for the praise of His glory.

¹³And in Him, having heard and believed the word of truth — the gospel of your salvation — you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴who is the pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession, to the praise of His glory.

Spiritual Wisdom

¹⁵For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, ¹⁶I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, ¹⁷that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in your knowledge of Him.

¹⁸I ask that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know the hope of His calling, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹and the surpassing greatness of His power to us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of His mighty strength, ²⁰which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, ²¹far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

²²And God put everything under His feet and made Him head over everything for the church, ²³which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Alive with Christ

¹And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, ²in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience. ³All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath.

⁴But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! ⁶And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, demonstrated by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

⁸For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.

One in Christ

¹¹Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles in the flesh and called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision (that done in the body by human hands) — ¹²remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

¹⁴For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility ¹⁵by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace ¹⁶and reconciling both of them to God in one body through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility.

¹⁷He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Christ Our Cornerstone

¹⁹Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, ²⁰built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. ²¹In Him the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in Him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God in His Spirit.