Be subject to civil authorities, because those who oppose them oppose what God has established and will bring punishment on themselves. Do what is good and then they will commend you. Give to all the authorities what you are obligated to give to them.

1Every believer must be subject to the authorities. Remember that God is the only one who gives officials their authority. Furthermore, those officials that exist are ones who have been appointed by God {God has appointed}.

2So whoever resists the officials is resisting what God has established. Furthermore, those who resist officials will bring on themselves from the officials the punishment that God considers fitting.

3What rulers do is not to cause people who do good deeds to be afraid. Instead, what they do is to cause people who do evil to be afraid. So, if any of you [RHQ] wants to be unafraid of officials, do what is good! If you(sg) do good, they will commend you instead of punishing you!

4It is in order to serve God by doing their work that every official exists, in order that they may benefit each of you. If any of you does what is evil, you (sg) will rightfully have reason to be afraid, because the authority that they have to punish people [MTY] is very real [LIT]! The officials exist to serve God. That is, they act as God’s agents as they punish those who do evil.

5So, it is necessary for you (pl) to be subject to officials, not only because they will punish you [MTY] if you disobey them, but also because you know that you should be subject to them

6It is for this reason that you also pay taxes, because the officials are ones who serve God as they continually do their work.

7Give to all the officials what you are supposed to give to them! Pay taxes to those who require that you pay taxes. Pay duties on goods to those who require that you pay those duties. Respect those who ought to be respected. Honor those who ought to be honored.

Do not leave any debt unpaid. Your only continual obligation is to love one another, because doing so fulfills all that God’s law requires.

8Pay all of your debts when you are supposed to pay them. The only thing that is like a debt that you should never stop paying is to love one another. Whoever loves others has fulfilled all that God requires in his laws.

9There are many things that God commanded in his laws, such as do not commit adultery, do not murder anyone, do not steal, and do not desire anything that belongs to someone else. But the command by which they are all summed up {that includes them all} is this: Each of you must love the people with whom you come in contact, just like you (sg) love yourself.

10If you love people with whom you come in contact [PRS], you will not do any evil to them [LIT]. So, whoever loves others fulfills all that God’s laws require.

Because it is time for us to be fully alert and active, we must quit doing wicked deeds. We must do those things that will help us resist that which is evil, we must live properly, and we must be like Christ.

11Do what I have just told you, especially since you know the significance of the time in which we are living. You know that it is time for you to be fully alert and active [MET], like people who have awakened from sleeping [MET], because the time when Christ will finally deliver us from this world’s pain/sin and sorrow is near. That time ◄is closer than/was not so close► when we first believed in Christ.

12Our time to live in this world [MTY] is almost ended [MET], like a night that is nearly ended. The time when Christ will return [MTY] is near. So we must quit doing wicked deeds [MET] such as people do in the darkness, and we must be doing the things that will help us resist Satan/evil [MET], as soldiers who put on their armor in the daytime get ready to resist their enemies.

13We must behave properly, as though the time when Christ will return [MTY] were already here. We must not participate in drunken carousing [HEN]. We must not commit any kind of sexual immorality [MTY, DOU]. We must not quarrel. We must not be jealous of other people.

14On the contrary, you/we should be like the Lord Jesus Christ so that others will see that we belong to him, just as people put on special clothes so that others will see what group they belong to [MET]. You/We should stop thinking about doing the things that your/our self-directed nature desires.