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169  Let my cry come before you, O Lord; ♦︎
   give me understanding, according to your word.
170  Let my supplication come before you; ♦︎
   deliver me, according to your promise.
171  My lips shall pour forth your praise, ♦︎
   when you have taught me your statutes.
172  My tongue shall sing of your word, ♦︎
   for all your commandments are righteous.
173  Let your hand reach out to help me, ♦︎
   for I have chosen your commandments.
174  I have longed for your salvation, O Lord, ♦︎
   and your law is my delight.
175  Let my soul live and it shall praise you, ♦︎
   and let your judgements be my help.
176  I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost; ♦︎
   O seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.

11 Now there lived an old prophet in Bethel. One of his sons came and told him all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel; the words also that he had spoken to the king, they told to their father. ¹²Their father said to them, ‘Which way did he go?’ And his sons showed him the way that the man of God who came from Judah had gone. ¹³Then he said to his sons, ‘Saddle a donkey for me.’ So they saddled a donkey for him, and he mounted it. ¹⁴He went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak tree. He said to him, ‘Are you the man of God who came from Judah?’ He answered, ‘I am.’ ¹⁵Then he said to him, ‘Come home with me and eat some food.’ ¹⁶But he said, ‘I cannot return with you, or go in with you; nor will I eat food or drink water with you in this place; ¹⁷for it was said to me by the word of the Lord: You shall not eat food or drink water there, or return by the way that you came.’ ¹⁸Then the other^* said to him, ‘I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord: Bring him back with you into your house so that he may eat food and drink water.’ But he was deceiving him. ¹⁹Then the man of God^* went back with him, and ate food and drank water in his house.

20 As they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back; ²¹and he proclaimed to the man of God who came from Judah, ‘Thus says the Lord: Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord, and have not kept the commandment that the Lord your God commanded you, ²²but have come back and have eaten food and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, “Eat no food, and drink no water”, your body shall not come to your ancestral tomb.’ ²³After the man of God^* had eaten food and had drunk, they saddled for him a donkey belonging to the prophet who had brought him back. ²⁴Then as he went away, a lion met him on the road and killed him. His body was thrown in the road, and the donkey stood beside it; the lion also stood beside the body. ²⁵People passed by and saw the body thrown in the road, with the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it in the town where the old prophet lived.

The New Life in Christ

3So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, ³for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ who is your^* life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). ⁶On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.^{* 7}These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life.^{* 8}But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive^* language from your mouth. ⁹Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices ¹⁰and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. ¹¹In that renewal^* there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!