16 God ◄inspired/put into men’s minds► everything that is written in the Scriptures {they wrote in the holy writings}, and those writings are all useful to teach us what is true, to cause us to know when we are wrong and then ◄to correct us/to show us what we have done that is wrong►, and to train/teach us to do what is right. 17 What is written {they wrote} is useful to help us who serve God to be ready/prepared to do all that we should do. By means of it, we are equipped {God gives us what we need} in order to do every kind of good deeds.

15 From the time when you were a child you have known the holy writings/Scriptures. You now know that they enabled you to become wise so that God saved you because of your believing in Christ Jesus. 16 God ◄inspired/put into men’s minds► everything that is written in the Scriptures {they wrote in the holy writings}, and those writings are all useful to teach us what is true, to cause us to know when we are wrong and then ◄to correct us/to show us what we have done that is wrong►, and to train/teach us to do what is right. 17 What is written {they wrote} is useful to help us who serve God to be ready/prepared to do all that we should do. By means of it, we are equipped {God gives us what we need} in order to do every kind of good deeds.

20 It is important that you realize that no one can interpret/explain by himself the meaning of what the prophets wrote in the Scriptures without the help of God’s Spirit (OR, no part of the Scriptures originated with the prophet himself), 21 because no human beings decided to make those prophecies. On the contrary, those who spoke messages from God did that because it was the Holy Spirit who caused them to do it, and therefore the Spirit must help us to interpret/understand their meaning.

15 ◄Do your best/Try hard► to be the kind of person that God will approve of. Be like a good worker as you teach the true message accurately. If a worker works well, he will not need to be ashamed of (OR, will be pleased about) what he does.

2 that you proclaim the true message to people. Always be ready/prepared to proclaim it, whether people want to hear it or not. Some people are saying things that are not correct; ◄refute their teaching/show why their teaching is wrong►. Rebuke them when they are doing wrong. Tell them what they ought to do. Be very patient while you teach them.

13 Until I come, be sure that you read the Scriptures to the congregation and that you exhort/urge them to obey the Scriptures, and teach them.

12 Beware of being insincere about doing this, because the message God has given us very powerfully penetrates our thinking more than a two-edged sword penetrates flesh [MET]. It penetrates deeply into our souls and spirits, as a sharp sword can penetrate into our joints and marrow. That is, by his message God [PRS] discerns all that we think about, and he discerns all that we desire to do [MTY] (OR, His message exposes to us all our thoughts and all our desires).

35 You can be certain that these things that I have told you about will happen. You can be more certain of that than you can be certain that the earth and sky [LIT] will continue to exist."

4 But Jesus said to him, "No! I will not change stones into bread, because it is written in the Scriptures {in the Scriptures Moses wrote}, ‘Eating food [SYN] sustains people physically, but it does not sustain them spiritually [SYN]. Instead, paying attention to everything that God has spoken to them is what sustains people spiritually.’"

10 Rain and snow come down from the sky,

and they cause the ground to be moist before the moisture returns to the sky and produces more clouds.

When the ground becomes moist, it causes plants to sprout and grow,

with the result that the soil produces seed for the farmer to plant and grain to produce flour to make bread for people to eat.

11 And similarly the things that I promise to do, I will always cause to happen;

my promises will always be fulfilled [LIT].

They will accomplish the things that I gave them to accomplish [DOU].

17 Set my disciples apart so that they may ◄completely belong to/serve► you, by enabling them to live in accordance with what is true. Your message is true.

39 You carefully study (OR, Study) the Scriptures, because you think that by studying them you will find the way to have eternal life. And those Scriptures tell people about me!

25 but God’s message endures/lasts forever.

This message that endures/lasts is the message about Christ that was proclaimed to you.

9 I know [RHQ] how a youth can ◄keep his life pure/avoid sinning►;

it is by obeying what you have told us to do.

160 All that you have said is truth,

and all ◄your regulations/the rules that you have given to us► will endure forever.

11 The Jews in Thessalonica had not been very willing to listen to God’s message, but the Jews who lived in Berea were very willing to listen, so they listened very eagerly to the message about Jesus. Every day they read the Scriptures for themselves to find out if what Paul said about the Messiah was true.

2 ◄On the Sabbath/On the Jewish rest day► Paul went into the meeting house, as he usually did. For three weeks he went there on each Jewish day of rest. Referring to the Scriptures about the Messiah, he spoke to the people who were there. 3 He explained and showed that the prophets wrote that the Messiah needed to die and ◄to become alive again/to be raised from the dead afterwards►. He told them: "This man Jesus, whom I am telling you about, is our Messiah. He died and became alive again, just like the prophets predicted."

30 So Philip ran to the chariot and kept running close to it. Then he heard the official reading what the prophet Isaiah had written. He asked the man, "Do you (sg) understand what you are reading?" 31 He answered Philip, "No! ◄I cannot possibly understand it if there is no one to explain it to me!/How can I understand it if there is no one to explain it to me?► [RHQ]"

Then the man said to Philip, "Please come up and sit beside me." So Philip did that. 32 The part of the Scriptures that the official was reading was this:

He will be silent when they lead him away to kill him

like when a sheep is led away to be killed.

As a young sheep is silent when its wool is being cut off {someone cuts off its wool}, similarly he will not protest [MTY] when people cause him to suffer.

35 So Philip began to explain that Scripture passage. He told him the good message about [MTY] Jesus. So the official understood and believed in Jesus.

10 During my entire life, I devoted myself to studying the laws of Yahweh, and how to obey those laws. I had also taught those laws and all their regulations to the Israeli people for many years.

25 He said to them, "You two foolish men! You are so slow to believe all that the prophets have written about the Messiah! 26 ◄You should certainly have known that it was necessary that the Messiah should suffer all those things and die, and then enter his glorious home in heaven!/Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer all those things and die, and then enter his glorious home in heaven?► [RHQ]" 27 Then he explained to them all the things that the prophets had written in the Scriptures about himself. He started with what Moses [MTY] wrote and then explained to them what all the other prophets wrote.

18 Then Jesus came close to us and said, "My Father has given me all authority over everything and everyone in heaven and on earth. 19 So go, and using my authority, teach my message to people of all ethnic groups so that they may become my disciples. Baptize them to be under the authority of [MTY] my Father, and of me, his Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember that by the Spirit I will be with you always, until the end of this age."

7 When you go to them, proclaim to them that God [EUP/MTY] will soon begin to rule over people.

8 Then Yahweh said to Elijah,

1 I am Joel, the son of Pethuel. This is a message that Yahweh gave to me.

19 Then Yahweh gave me this message:

1 This is the message that Yahweh gave to the prophet Malachi to give to the people of Israel.

8 Yahweh gave another message to me, saying

4 I left his room, but Yahweh gave me this message:

1 The Spirit of Yahweh our Lord is on me;

he has appointed [MTY] me to bring good news to those who are oppressed,

to comfort those who are discouraged,

to free all those who are as though they are chained/tied [DOU] by the wrong things that they continually do.

2 He has sent me to tell those who mourn about the members of their families who died (OR, who are still in Babylonia)

that now is the time when Yahweh will act kindly toward his people;

now is the time when our God will ◄get revenge on/punish► their enemies.

3 To all those in Jerusalem who mourn,

he will give flower necklaces to wear;

instead of ashes that they put on their heads to show that they are sad;

he will cause them to rejoice [MTY] instead of being sad;

he will enable them to be [MET] happy instead of being discouraged.

They will be called "people who continually do what is right,

people who are like tall/strong oak trees that Yahweh has planted"

to show others that he is very great.

5 Everything that God has said is true;

he is like a shield [MET] for all those who request him to protect them.

6 Do not add to (OR, change) what God has said;

if you do that, he will rebuke you and show that you are lying.

18 "I, Jesus, solemnly warn everyone who hears what I have foretold in this book: If anyone adds anything to this message, God will cause him to experience the plagues that are {that I have} described in this book. 19 If anyone omits any of the message about what I have foretold in this book, God will take away that person’s right to eat fruit from [MTY] the tree that enables people to live forever. He will also take away that person’s right to enter God’s city. Both these things are described {I have described both these things} in this book."

6 I am very disappointed [IRO] that so soon after you trusted in Christ you have turned away from God. He chose you in order that you might have what Christ freely/kindly gives. I am also disappointed that so soon you are believing a different message which some say is "good news." 7 Their message is not a true message. What is happening is that certain persons are confusing your minds. They are desiring to change the good message ◄that Christ revealed/about Christ► and are creating another message. 8 But even if we (exc) apostles or an angel from heaven would tell you a message that is different from the good message that we told you before, I appeal to God that he punish such a person forever. 9 As I told you previously, so now I tell you this once more: Someone is telling you what he says is a good message, but it is a message that is different from the good message that I gave you. So I appeal to God that he severely punish that person.

15 And think about this: Our Lord Jesus Christ is patient because he wants people to be saved. Our dear ◄brother/fellow believer► Paul also wrote wise words to you about these same matters, because God enabled him to understand these ◄events/things that will happen►. 16 In the letters that Paul wrote there are certain things that are difficult for people to understand. People who are spiritually ignorant and ◄unstable/do not believe firmly in Christ► interpret these things wrongly, as they also ◄interpret/explain the meaning of► the other parts of the Scriptures wrongly. The result is that they will destroy themselves spiritually, and God will punish them.

4 And you need to remember that what was written previously {what God’s servants previously wrote} in the Scriptures, was written {they wrote} to teach us in order that we would be patient and be encouraged by reading/believing what they wrote. If we do that, we can confidently expect God to do for us all he has promised.

14 In regard to the people of Israel rejecting the gospel, some people might object by saying, (OR, This raises another problem about the Jews:) "◄They certainly cannot ask Christ to save them if they have not first believed in him!/How can they ask Christ to help/save them if they have not first believed in him?► [RHQ] And ◄they certainly cannot believe in him if they have not heard about him!/how can they believe in him if they have not heard about him?► [RHQ] And ◄they certainly cannot hear about him if someone does not preach to them about him!/how can they hear about him if someone does not preach to them about him?► [RHQ] 15 And those who preach to them about Christ, ◄certainly cannot preach if they are not sent by God {if God does not send them} to preach!/how can they preach if they are not sent by God {if God does not send them} to preach?► [RHQ] His sending messengers to them would be just like it is written {like someone wrote} in the Scriptures, ‘The arrival [MTY] of those who preach the good message is wonderful!’ " 16 I would reply in this way to people who say such things: God has indeed sent people to preach the message about Christ. But not all the people of Israel have paid attention to the good message! It is like what Isaiah said when he felt very discouraged, "Lord, it seems as if hardly anyone believed what they heard us (exc) preach! [RHQ]" 17 So then, I tell you that people are believing in Christ as a result of hearing the message about him, and people are hearing the message as a result of people preaching about Christ!

16 That leads me to say that I very confidently proclaim [LIT] the good message about what Christ has done, because this good message is the powerful means that God uses to save from the guilt of their sins all people who trust in what Christ has done for them. Specifically, God first has saved the Jews who believe the good message, and then he has saved non-Jews. 17 By means of this good message God reveals how he erases the record of people’s sins (OR, declares people no longer guilty for having sinned); and his doing this is entirely because [IDM] they trust in Christ. This is confirmed by what a prophet long ago wrote that God said, "Those ◄whose record of sin I have erased/whom I have declared no longer guilty for sin► because they trust in me will live forever."

12 It was not the ideas that unbelievers teach that we accepted. Instead, it was the Spirit who came from God that we received, in order that we might know the things that God has freely done for us. 13 Those are the things that I tell you about. As I do that, I do not tell you things that someone whom others thought was [IRO] wise taught me. Instead, I tell you truths that God’s Spirit taught me, and I explain those spiritual truths to people whose thinking is guided by God’s Spirit (OR, I teach spiritual truths to spiritual people). 14 Those who are unbelievers reject the truths that God’s Spirit teaches us (inc), because they consider those truths to be foolish. They cannot understand them, because it is God’s Spirit who enables us to evaluate those truths correctly, and those people do not have God’s Spirit.

21 God, acting very wisely, made it impossible for unbelievers to know God by doing what they thought was [IRO] wise. Instead, he was happy to save those who trust in Christ as the result of their hearing the message that was proclaimed to them, a message that others consider to be foolish.

22 The Jews want people to prove, by performing miracles, that their message is true. The non-Jews want to hear only messages consisting of talk that they consider to be very wise. 23 As for us, we proclaim the message about what Christ accomplished for us when he was nailed {when they nailed him} to the cross. That message offends Jews because they do not think that the Messiah will die, and non-Jews think it is [IRO] a foolish message. 24 But to us whom God has chosen to belong to himself, both Jews and non-Jews, that message shows that God acted powerfully and wisely by sending Christ to die for us.

17 Christ sent me not primarily to baptize people but to preach the good message about him. When I do that, he does not want me to use words that human philosophers consider wise [IRO]. I do not want the message about what he accomplished when he was nailed to the cross [MTY] to lose its power.

9 But you are people whom God has chosen to belong to him. You are a group that represents God like priests do, and you rule with God [MET] like kings. You are ◄a holy group of people/a group of people who are separate from evil►. You are people who belong to God. This is in order that you might proclaim the virtues of God. He has called you from your former ways, when you were ignorant of his truth, into the marvelous understanding that he gives us [MET]. That is, he has called you out of spiritual darkness into spiritual light.