Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.

Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.

The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.