Living For Eternity

¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.”  ¹⁴Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring #— #what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes. 

¹⁵Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.  ¹⁷So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it. 

¹Come now, you rich  people, weep and wail over the miseries that are coming on you. ²Your wealth has rotted and your clothes are moth-eaten.  ³Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasure in the last days.  ⁴Look! The pay that you withheld from the workers  who mowed your fields cries out, and the outcry of the harvesters has reached the ears of the Lord of Armies.  ⁵You have lived luxuriously on the earth and have indulged yourselves. You have fattened your hearts  in a day of slaughter.  ⁶You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous, who does not resist you. 

⁷Therefore, brothers and sisters, be patient until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth and is patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.  ⁸You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, because the Lord’s coming is near. 

⁹Brothers and sisters, do not complain about one another, so that you will not be judged. Look, the judge stands at the door! 

¹⁰Brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the Lord’s name as an example of suffering and patience. ¹¹See, we count as blessed those who have endured.  You have heard of Job’s endurance  and have seen the outcome that the Lord brought about #— #the Lord is compassionate and merciful.