For the civil authorities are God's servants to do you good. But if you practice doing wrong, you should dread them, for they do not wield the sword for nothing. Indeed, they are God's servants to inflict punishment upon people who do wrong.

For it is better, if the will of God should plan it so, to suffer for doing right than for doing wrong.

Dearly beloved, do not follow bad examples but good ones. Whoever practices doing right is God's child; whoever practices doing wrong has never seen God.

And then I will say to them openly, 'I never knew you at all. Go away from me, you who practiced doing wrong.'

For anyone who is in the habit of doing wrong hates the light, and to keep his actions from being reproved, he does not come out into the daylight.

For civil authorities are not a terror to the man who does right, but they are to the man who does wrong. Do you want to have no dread of the civil authorities? Then practice doing right and you will be commended for it.

But I am praying God that you may never do anything wrong, not to show that I am standing the test, but that you should continue doing right, though I should fail to stand the test.

Brothers, if anybody is caught in the very act of doing wrong, you who are spiritual, in the spirit of gentleness, must set him right; each of you continuing to think of yourself, for you may be tempted too.