While We Still Have Time

So then, brothers, since we have been given no small opening for repentance, and while we still have the time, let us turn back to the God who called us, while we still have someone who takes us in. For if we say goodbye to these pleasures and defeat our soul by refusing to do its evil cravings, we will share in the mercy of Jesus. [a]

You know that the day of judgment is already coming like a blazing oven, and some of the heavens will melt, and the whole earth will be like lead melting in fire; and then the hidden and the open deeds of people will come to light. So giving to the poor is good, as repentance from sin is good; fasting is better than prayer, but giving to the poor is better than both. Love covers a multitude of sins, and prayer from a good conscience rescues a person from death. Blessed is everyone found full of these things, for giving to the poor lifts the weight of sin.

So let us repent with our whole heart, so that none of us is lost. For if we have commands that we are to do even this — to pull people away from idols and teach them — how much more must a soul that already knows God not be lost? Let us help one another, then, and lift up those who are weak in what is good, so that all of us may be saved; and let us turn one another back and correct one another. And let us not merely appear to believe and pay attention now, while the elders are correcting us. When we have gone home, let us remember the Lord’s instructions there too, and not be pulled the other way by the world’s cravings. Let us come to worship more often instead, and try to make progress in the Lord’s commands, so that all of us, thinking the same way, may be gathered into life. [e]

For the Lord said, “I am coming to gather all the nations, tribes and tongues.” He is speaking of the day when he appears, when he will come and ransom us, each one according to what he has done.

The unbelievers will see his glory and his power, and they will be shocked when they see the world’s kingly rule in the hands of Jesus. They will say, “Woe to us! It was you, and we did not know it. We did not believe, and we did not obey the elders when they told us about our salvation.” And “their worm will not die and their fire will not be put out, and they will be a sight for all flesh to see.”

He means that day of judgment, when they will see those among us who lived without reverence for God and dealt falsely with the commands of Jesus Christ. But the righteous, who have done good and endured tortures and hated the soul’s pleasures — when they look at the people who went off course and denied Jesus by their words or by their deeds, and see how they are punished with terrible tortures in fire that is never put out — they will give glory to their God, saying, “There will be hope for anyone who has served God with his whole heart.”

So let us also be among those who give thanks, who have served God, and not among the ungodly, who are being judged. For I myself am a sinner through and through. I have not yet escaped temptation; I am still standing in the middle of the devil’s instruments. Even so, I am working hard at chasing after righteousness, so that I may have the strength at least to come near it, because I am afraid of the judgment that is coming. [l]

So, brothers and sisters, after the God of truth I am reading you an appeal, to make you pay attention to what is written, so that you may save both yourselves and the one who is reading to you. The payment I ask from you is that you repent with your whole heart, and so give yourselves salvation and life. If we do that, we will set a goal in front of all the young who want to work hard at reverence for God and at his goodness. [o]

And let us not, foolish as we are, take offense and grow indignant when someone corrects us and turns us from wrongdoing to righteousness. Sometimes we are doing evil and do not even realize it, because of the double-mindedness and unbelief inside us, and our understanding has been darkened by empty cravings. So let us do what is right, so that we may be saved in the end. Blessed are those who obey these instructions: even if they suffer for a short time in this world, they will gather in the immortal fruit of the resurrection.

So let the person who reveres God not grieve if he is miserable in the times we live in now. A blessed time is waiting for him. He will live again above with the fathers, and he will be glad through an age with no grief in it.

And do not let this trouble your minds either — that we see the unrighteous getting rich while God’s own servants are hemmed in. So, brothers and sisters, let us keep believing. We are contending in the contest of the living God; we are in training in this present life, so that we may be crowned in the life to come. None of the righteous has received his fruit quickly; he waits for it. For if God paid the righteous their wages right away, we would be practicing business instead of reverence for God: we would look righteous while chasing not what is godly but what turns a profit. And that is why divine judgment harmed a spirit that was not righteous, and weighed it down with chains. [s]