control of all lives, and everyone can therefore be assured that His judgment will be fair and true. Judgment doesn’t just happen; God controls it. Only those who actually deserve to die because of their sin will die. Next (vv. 5–9) follows a rather lengthy description of what constitutes the sort of behavior that will not cause a person to die but to be acceptable to God and thus to live. It is important to realize that this description is not advocating what we call “works righteousness.” That
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