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²⁰ My child, be attentive to my words;
   incline your ear to my sayings.
²¹ Do not let them escape from your sight;
   keep them within your heart.
²² For they are life to those who find them,
   and healing to all their flesh.
²³ Keep your heart with all vigilance,
   for from it flow the springs of life.
²⁴ Put away from you crooked speech,
   and put devious talk far from you.
²⁵ Let your eyes look directly forwards,
   and your gaze be straight before you.

Feeding the Four Thousand

8In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, ²‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. ³If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way—and some of them have come from a great distance.’ ⁴His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’ ⁵He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said, ‘Seven.’ ⁶Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. ⁷They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. ⁸They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. ⁹Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. ¹⁰And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.^*

The Demand for a Sign

11 The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him. ¹²And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.’ ¹³And he left them, and getting into the boat again, he went across to the other side.

²¹For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. ²²You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, ²³and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Rules for the New Life

25 So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another. ²⁶Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, ²⁷and do not make room for the devil. ²⁸Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. ²⁹Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up,^* as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. ³⁰And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. ³¹Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, ³²and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.^* 5¹Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,