One Year Bible.

Do Not Envy

Saying 20

¹Do not envy wicked men

or desire their company;

²for their hearts devise violence,

and their lips declare trouble.

Saying 21

³By wisdom a house is built

and by understanding it is established;

⁴through knowledge its rooms are filled

with every precious and beautiful treasure.

Saying 22

⁵A wise man is strong,

and a man of knowledge enhances his strength.

⁶Only with sound guidance should you wage war,

and victory lies in a multitude of counselors.

Saying 23

⁷Wisdom is too high for a fool;

he does not open his mouth in the meeting place.

Saying 24

⁸He who plots evil

will be called a schemer.

⁹A foolish scheme is sin,

and a mocker is detestable to men.

Saying 25

¹⁰If you faint in the day of distress,

how small is your strength!

¹¹Rescue those being led away to death,

and restrain those stumbling toward the slaughter.

¹²If you say, “Behold, we did not know about this,”

does not He who weighs hearts consider it?

Does not the One who guards your life know?

Will He not repay a man according to his deeds?

Saying 26

¹³Eat honey, my son, for it is good,

and the honeycomb is sweet to your taste.

¹⁴Know therefore that wisdom is sweet to your soul.

If you find it, there is a future for you,

and your hope will never be cut off.

Saying 27

¹⁵Do not lie in wait, O wicked man, near the dwelling of the righteous;

do not destroy his resting place.

¹⁶For though a righteous man may fall seven times, he still gets up;

but the wicked stumble in bad times.

Saying 28

¹⁷Do not gloat when your enemy falls,

and do not let your heart rejoice when he stumbles,

¹⁸or the LORD will see and disapprove,

and turn His wrath away from him.

Saying 29

¹⁹Do not fret over evildoers,

and do not be envious of the wicked.

²⁰For the evil man has no future;

the lamp of the wicked will be extinguished.

Saying 30

²¹My son, fear the LORD and the king,

and do not associate with the rebellious.

²²For they will bring sudden destruction.

Who knows what ruin they can bring?

Further Sayings of the Wise

²³These also are sayings of the wise:

To show partiality in judgment

is not good.

²⁴Whoever tells the guilty, “You are innocent”—

peoples will curse him, and nations will denounce him;

²⁵but it will go well with those who convict the guilty,

and rich blessing will come upon them.

²⁶An honest answer given

is like a kiss on the lips.

²⁷Complete your outdoor work and prepare your field;

after that, you may build your house.

²⁸Do not testify against your neighbor without cause,

and do not deceive with your lips.

²⁹Do not say, “I will do to him as he has done to me;

I will repay the man according to his work.”

³⁰I went past the field of a slacker

and by the vineyard of a man lacking judgment.

³¹Thorns had grown up everywhere,

thistles had covered the ground,

and the stone wall was broken down.

³²I observed and took it to heart;

I looked and received instruction:

³³A little sleep, a little slumber,

a little folding of the hands to rest,

³⁴and poverty will come upon you like a robber,

and need like a bandit.

The Law of Liberty

¹Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on his opinions. ²For one person has faith to eat all things, while another, who is weak, eats only vegetables. ³The one who eats everything must not belittle the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted him. ⁴Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

⁵One person regards a certain day above the others, while someone else considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ⁶He who observes a special day does so to the Lord; he who eats does so to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.

⁷For none of us lives to himself alone, and none of us dies to himself alone. ⁸If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. ⁹For this reason Christ died and returned to life, that He might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

¹⁰Why, then, do you judge your brother? Or why do you belittle your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. ¹¹It is written:

“As surely as I live,

says the Lord,

every knee will bow before Me;

every tongue will confess to God.”

¹²So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

The Law of Love

¹³Therefore let us stop judging one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.

¹⁴I am convinced and fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. ¹⁵If your brother is distressed by what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother, for whom Christ died.

¹⁶Do not allow what you consider good, then, to be spoken of as evil. ¹⁷For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. ¹⁸For whoever serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

¹⁹So then, let us pursue what leads to peace and to mutual edification. ²⁰Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to let his eating be a stumbling block. ²¹It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything to cause your brother to stumble.

²²Keep your belief about such matters between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. ²³But the one who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that is not from faith is sin.

Jesus Our Apostle and High Priest

¹Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, set your focus on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. ²He was faithful to the One who appointed Him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.

³For Jesus has been counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. ⁴And every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.

⁵Now Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be spoken later. ⁶But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are His house, if we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope of which we boast.

Do Not Harden Your Hearts

⁷Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear His voice,

⁸do not harden your hearts,

as you did in the rebellion,

in the day of testing in the wilderness,

⁹where your fathers tested and tried Me,

and for forty years saw My works.

¹⁰Therefore I was angry with that generation,

and I said,

‘Their hearts are always going astray,

and they have not known My ways.’

¹¹So I swore on oath in My anger,

‘They shall never enter My rest.’”

The Peril of Unbelief

¹²See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God. ¹³But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

¹⁴We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly to the end the assurance we had at first. ¹⁵As it has been said:

“Today, if you hear His voice,

do not harden your hearts,

as you did in the rebellion.”

¹⁶For who were the ones who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? ¹⁷And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸And to whom did He swear that they would never enter His rest? Was it not to those who disobeyed? ¹⁹So we see that it was because of their unbelief that they were unable to enter.

The Sabbath Rest

¹Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be deemed to have fallen short of it. ²For we also received the good news just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, since they did not share the faith of those who comprehended it.

³Now we who have believed enter that rest. As for the others, it is just as God has said:

“So I swore on oath in My anger,

‘They shall never enter My rest.’”

And yet His works have been finished since the foundation of the world. ⁴For somewhere He has spoken about the seventh day in this manner: “And on the seventh day God rested from all His works.” ⁵And again, as He says in the passage above: “They shall never enter My rest.”

⁶Since, then, it remains for some to enter His rest, and since those who formerly heard the good news did not enter because of their disobedience, ⁷God again designated a certain day as “Today,” when a long time later He spoke through David as was just stated: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”

⁸For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. ⁹There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. ¹⁰For whoever enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His. ¹¹Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following the same pattern of disobedience.

The Living Word

¹²For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

¹⁴Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we profess. ¹⁵For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin. ¹⁶Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.