For the rest therefore, brethren, we pray and beseech you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received from us, how you ought to walk, and to please God, so also you would walk, that you may abound the more.2 For you know what precepts I have given to you by the Lord Jesus.3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that you should abstain from fornication;4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour:5 Not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles that know not God:6 And that no man overreach, nor circumvent his brother in business: because the Lord is the avenger of all these things, as we have told you before, and have testified.7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification.8 Therefore, he that despiseth these things, despiseth not man, but God, who also hath given his holy Spirit in us.
Have no fellowship with such a man, lest ye perish along with him, even should he be thy father, thy son, thy brother, or a member of thy family. For says [the Scripture], "Thine eye shall not spare him." You ought therefore to "hate those that hate God, and to waste away [with grief] on account of His enemies." I do not mean that you should beat them or persecute them, as do the Gentiles "that know not the Lord and God; " but that you should regard them as your enemies, and separate yourselves from them, while yet you admonish them, and exhort them to repentance, if it may be they will hear, if it may be they will submit themselves. For our God is a lover of mankind, and "will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Wherefore "He makes His sun to rise upon the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust; " of whose kindness the Lord, wishing us also to be imitators, says, "Be ye perfect, even as also your Father that is in heaven is perfect."
Responsorial Psalm — Psalm 97:1 and 2b, 5-6, 10, 11-12
Ps 96:1-1
For the same David, when his land was restored again to him. The Lord hath reigned, let the earth rejoice: let many islands be glad.2 Clouds and darkness are round about him: justice and judgment are the establishment of his throne.5 The mountains melted like wax, at the presence of the Lord: at the presence of the Lord of all the earth.6 The heavens declared his justice: and all people saw his glory.10 You that love the Lord, hate evil: the Lord preserveth the souls of his saints, he will deliver them out of the hand of the sinner.11 Light is risen to the just, and joy to the right of heart.12 Rejoice, ye just, in the Lord: and give praise to the remembrance of his holiness.
For if the earth has to suffer either joy or injury, it is simply on people's account, that they may suffer the joy or the sorrow through the events that happen to their dwelling place, whereby they will rather have to pay the penalty that, simply on their account, even the earth must suffer. When, therefore, God even threatens the earth, I would prefer saying that he threatens the flesh. So likewise, when he makes a promise to the earth, I would rather understand him as promising the flesh; as in that passage of David: "The Lord is King, let the earth be glad," meaning the flesh of the saints, to which appertains the enjoyment of the kingdom of God.
If, however, those whom God has accepted and the believers shall attain salvation, it is necessary that those whom God has rejected and the unbelieving should incur the opposite issue, even the loss of salvation. Now here is a judgment, and those who hold it out before us belong to the Creator. Whom else than the God of retribution can I understand by the one who shall "beat his servants with stripes," either "few or many," and shall exact from them what he had committed to them? Whom is it suitable for me to obey, but him who remunerates? Your Christ proclaims, "I have come to send fire on the earth." That most lenient being, the Lord who has no hell, not long before had restrained his disciples from demanding fire on the churlish village. Whereas he burned Sodom and Gomorrah with a tempest of fire. Of him the psalmist sang, "A fire shall go out before him and burn up his enemies round about." By Hosea he uttered the threat, "I will send a fire on the cities of Judah"; and by Isaiah, "A fire has been kindled in my anger." He cannot lie. If it is not he who spoke even out of the burning bush, it can be of no importance what fire you insist on being understood.
For Herod himself had sent and apprehended John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias the wife of Philip his brother, because he had married her.18 For John said to Herod: It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.19 Now Herodias laid snares for him: and was desirous to put him to death, and could not.20 For Herod feared John, knowing him to be a just and holy man: and kept him, and when he heard him, did many things: and he heard him willingly.†21 And when a convenient day was come, Herod made a supper for his birthday, for the princes, and tribunes, and chief men of Galilee.22 And when the daughter of the same Herodias had come in, and had danced, and pleased Herod, and them that were at table with him, the king said to the damsel: Ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it thee.23 And he swore to her: Whatsoever thou shalt ask I will give thee, though it be the half of my kingdom.24 Who when she was gone out, said to her mother, What shall I ask? But she said: The head of John the Baptist.25 And when she was come in immediately with haste to the king, she asked, saying: I will that forthwith thou give me in a dish, the head of John the Baptist.26 And the king was struck sad. Yet because of his oath, and because of them that were with him at table, he would not displease her:27 But sending an executioner, he commanded that his head should be brought in a dish.28 And he beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a dish: and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother.29 Which his disciples hearing came, and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.
(Mor. 3, 7) I cannot, without the greatest wonder, reflect that he, who was filled even in his mother’s womb with the spirit of prophecy, and who was the greatest that had arisen amongst those born of women, is sent into prison by wicked men, is beheaded for the dancing of a girl, and though a man of so great austerity, meets death through such a foul instrument. Are we to suppose that there was something evil in his life, to be wiped away by so ignominious a death? When, however, could he commit a sin even in his eating, whose food was only locusts and wild honey? How could he offend in his conversation, who never quitted the wilderness? How is it that Almighty God so despises in this life those whom He has so sublimely chosen before all ages, if it be not for the reason, which is plain to the piety of the faithful, that He thus sinks them into the lowest place, because He sees how He is rewarding them in the highest, and outwardly He throws them down amongst things despised, because inwardly He draws them up even to incomprehensible things. Let each then infer from this what they shall suffer, whom He rejects, if He so grieves those whom he loves.
About CSB. A personal translation of the New Testament, rendered directly from the public-domain Greek in a literary style — not a scholarly critical edition, and not for liturgical or doctrinal authority. It is one reader's work, offered for enjoyment; where it matters, weigh it against an established translation. (Placeholder text — final wording to come.)