New Covenant Community Church | Highlands Ranch Unknown

17These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been reserved. 18For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, 19promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. 20For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. 22It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”

Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, 11whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. 12But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, 13suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, 14having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children; 15forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; 16but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, for a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;




5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 


6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;




7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 


8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard);




9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

1But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

1When Israel was a child, I loved him,

and out of Egypt I called my son.

2The more they were called,

the more they went away;

they kept sacrificing to the Baals

and burning offerings to idols.


3Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk;

I took them up by their arms,

but they did not know that I healed them.

4I led them with cords of kindness,a

with the bands of love,

and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,

and I bent down to them and fed them.


5They shall notb return to the land of Egypt,

but Assyria shall be their king,

because they have refused to return to me.

6The sword shall rage against their cities,

consume the bars of their gates,

and devour them because of their own counsels.

7My people are bent on turning away from me,

and though they call out to the Most High,

he shall not raise them up at all.


8How can I give you up, O Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, O Israel?

How can I make you like Admah?

How can I treat you like Zeboiim?

My heart recoils within me;

my compassion grows warm and tender.

9I will not execute my burning anger;

I will not again destroy Ephraim;

for I am God and not a man,

the Holy One in your midst,

and I will not come in wrath.c


10They shall go after the LORD;

he will roar like a lion;

when he roars,

his children shall come trembling from the west;

11they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,

and like doves from the land of Assyria,

and I will return them to their homes, declares the LORD.

22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 




23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 




24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 




25 and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 




26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. 




27 But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.




1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 




2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 




3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 




4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 




5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.