Beloved,
now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we
will be. We know that when He appears,
we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

³ And everyone who has this hope fixed on
Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

⁴ Everyone who practices sin also practices
lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.
⁵ You know that He appeared in order to take away sins;
and in Him there is no sin.
⁶ No one who abides in Him sins;
no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him
. ⁷ Little
children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices
righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;

⁸ the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son
of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
⁹ No one who is born of
God practices sin
, because
His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is
born of God. ¹⁰ By this the children of God and the children of the
devil are obvious: anyone who does
not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love
his brother.
– 1 John 3:2-10

In those days the saints and the chosen shall undergo a
change. The light of day shall rest upon them; and the splendor and glory of
the saints shall be changed.

In the day of trouble evil
shall be heaped up upon sinners; but the righteous shall triumph in the name of
the Lord of spirits.

Others shall be made to see, that they must repent, and forsake
the works of their hands; and that glory awaits them not in the presence of the
Lord of spirits; yet that by his name they may be saved.

The Lord of spirits will have compassion
on them; for great is his mercy; and righteousness is in his judgment, and in
the presence of his glory; nor in his judgment shall iniquity stand. He who repents not before him shall perish.

Henceforward I will not have
mercy on them, saith the Lord of spirits.

I Never Knew You Matthew
7:21-23

²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does
the will of my Father who is in heaven.
²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy
in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works
in your name?’

²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy
in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works
in your name?’
²³ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice
lawlessness (the breaking of the
Torah).’

Deuteronomy 4 (ESV)

Moses
Commands Obedience

4 “And now, O Israel,
listen to the statutes and the rules
that I am teaching you, and do them, that
you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the
Lord, the God of your
fathers, is giving you.
² You shall not add to the word that I
command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the
Lord your God that I command you. ³ Your
eyes have seen what the
Lord did at
Baal-peor, for the
Lord your God destroyed
from among you all the men who followed the Baal of Peor.
⁴ But you
who held fast to the
Lord your God are all
alive today.
⁵ See, I
have taught you statutes and rules, as the
Lord my
God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to
take possession of it.

⁶ Keep them and do them, for that
will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who,
when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a
wise and understanding people.’
⁷ For what great
nation is there that has a god so near to it as the
Lord our God is to us,
whenever we call upon him?
⁸ And
what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as
all this law that I set before you today?

⁹ “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget
the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all
the days of your life. Make them
known to your children and your children’s children—

¹⁰ how on the
day that you stood before the
Lord
your God at Horeb, the Lord said
to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so
that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth,
and that they may teach their children so.’
¹¹ And you
came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned
with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom.
¹² Then the Lord spoke to you out
of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there
was only a voice.
¹³ And he
declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the
Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone.
¹⁴ And the Lord commanded me at
that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land
that you are going over to possess.

Idolatry
Forbidden

¹⁵ “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully.
Since you saw no form on the day that the
Lord spoke
to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire,
¹⁶ beware lest you act corruptly by
making a carved image for yourselves
, in the form of any
figure, the likeness of male or female,
¹⁷ the
likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird
that flies in the air,

¹⁸ the
likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that
is in the water under the earth.
¹⁹ And beware lest you
raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the
stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and
serve them, things that the
Lord your
God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.
²⁰ But the Lord has taken you and brought
you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own
inheritance, as you are this day.
²¹ Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me
because of you, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I
should not enter the good land that the
Lord your
God is giving you for an inheritance.
²² For I
must die in this land; I must not go over the Jordan. But you shall go
over and take possession of that good land.
²³ Take care, lest you forget the covenant of
the
Lord your God, which he made with you, and make
a carved image
, the form of anything that the Lord your
God has forbidden you.
²⁴ For the Lord your God is a
consuming fire, a jealous God.

²⁵ “When you father
children and children’s children, and have grown old in the land, if you
act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by
doing what is evil in the sight of the
Lord your
God, so as to provoke him to anger,

Lord your
God, so as to provoke him to anger,
²⁶ I call heaven and
earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the
land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in
it, but will be utterly destroyed.
²⁷ And the Lord will scatter you
among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations
where the
Lord will drive you. ²⁸ And there
you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that
neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
²⁹ But
from there you will seek the
Lord your
God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with
all your soul.
³⁰ When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in
the latter days, you will return to the
Lord your God and obey his voice. ³¹ For the Lord your God is a
merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant
with your fathers that he swore to them.

The Ten Commandments
Exodus 20

20 And God
spoke all these words, saying,

² “I am the Lord your
God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

³ “You shall
have no other gods before
^[a] me.

⁴ “You shall
not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under
the earth.

⁵ You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your
God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the
children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
⁶ but showing steadfast love to thousands^[b] of
those who love me and keep my commandments.

⁷ “You shall
not take the name of the
Lord your
God in vain, for the
Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

⁸ “Remember
the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
⁹ Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or
your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or
the sojourner who is within your gates.

¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the
sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the
Lord blessed
the Sabbath day and made it holy.

¹² “Honor your
father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the
Lord your
God is giving you.

¹³ “You shall
not murder.
^[c]

¹⁴ “You shall
not commit adultery.

¹⁵ “You shall
not steal.

¹⁶ “You shall
not bear false witness against your neighbor.

¹⁷ “You shall
not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s
wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or
anything that is your neighbor’s.”

¹⁸ Now when
all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound
of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid^[d] and
trembled, and they stood far off

^[d] and
trembled, and they stood far off
¹⁹ and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but
do not let God speak to us, lest we die.”
²⁰ Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test
you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.”
²¹ The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick
darkness where God was.