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Ruth 1:11-18
But Naomi replied,“ Go back home, my daughters! There is no reason for you to return to Judah with me! I am no longer capable of giving birth to sons who might become your husbands!Go back home, my daughters! For I am too old to get married again. Even if I thought that there was hope that I could get married tonight and conceive sons,surely you would not want to wait until they were old enough to marry! Surely you would not remain unmarried all that time! No, my daughters, you must not return with me. For my intense suffering is too much for you to bear. For the LORD is afflicting me!”Again they wept loudly. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung tightly to her.So Naomi said,“ Look, your sister-in-law is returning to her people and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law back home!”But Ruth replied,“ Stop urging me to abandon you! For wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will become my people, and your God will become my God.Wherever you die, I will die– and there I will be buried. May the LORD punish me severely if I do not keep my promise! Only death will be able to separate me from you!”When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to dissuade her.
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Joshua 24:15-22
If you have no desire to worship the LORD, choose today whom you will worship, whether it be the gods whom your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But I and my family will worship the LORD!”The people responded,“ Far be it from us to abandon the LORD so we can worship other gods!For the LORD our God took us and our fathers out of slavery in the land of Egypt and performed these awesome miracles before our very eyes. He continually protected us as we traveled and when we passed through nations.The LORD drove out from before us all the nations, including the Amorites who lived in the land. So we too will worship the LORD, for he is our God!”Joshua warned the people,“ You will not keep worshiping the LORD, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God who will not forgive your rebellion or your sins.If you abandon the LORD and worship foreign gods, he will turn against you; he will bring disaster on you and destroy you, though he once treated you well.”The people said to Joshua,“ No! We really will worship the LORD!”Joshua said to the people,“ Do you agree to be witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to worship the LORD?” They replied,“ We are witnesses!”
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2 Samuel 15 19-2 Samuel 15 20
Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite,“ Why should you come with us? Go back and stay with the new king, for you are a foreigner and an exile from your own country.It seems like you arrived just yesterday. Today should I make you wander around by going with us? I go where I must go. But as for you, go back and take your men with you. May genuine loyal love protect you!”
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Luke 14:25-33
Now large crowds were accompanying Jesus, and turning to them he said,“ If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn’t sit down first and compute the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish the tower, all who see it will begin to make fun of him.They will say,‘ This man began to build and was not able to finish!’Or what king, going out to confront another king in battle, will not sit down first and determine whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?If he cannot succeed, he will send a representative while the other is still a long way off and ask for terms of peace.In the same way therefore not one of you can be my disciple if he does not renounce all his own possessions.
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John 6:70
Jesus replied,“ Didn’t I choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is the devil?”
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Matthew 10:2
Now these are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon( called Peter), and Andrew his brother; James son of Zebedee and John his brother;