These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My son, keep your father’s command
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity! Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me. Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. But from everlasting to everlasting
the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children—
with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts. Start children off on the way they should go,
and even when they are old they will not turn from it. Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for a time of adversity. Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our ancestors; may he never leave us nor forsake us. If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. The father of a righteous child has great joy;
a man who fathers a wise son rejoices in him. ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ My son, if your heart is wise,
then my heart will be glad indeed. A wise son brings joy to his father,
but a foolish son brings grief to his mother. ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family,
and do not go to your relative’s house when disaster strikes you—
better a neighbor nearby than a relative far away.Proverbs 27:10 | NIV |