🛡️ Conditional Security vs. Once Saved Always Saved
📖 This study sets out the Biblical case for Conditional Security: salvation is genuinely given, divinely guarded, and held through ongoing faith. God's grip never weakens — but Scripture speaks plainly, and often, of those who let go. What follows lets the warnings speak in their own words, weighs the passages most often used to prove that no believer can fall, and records the men, angels, and nations who once stood in grace and did not remain.
⚠️ The Plain Warnings: Falling Away and Departing the Faith
Hebrews 6:4–6 "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance..."
Hebrews 2:1–3 "Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast... how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"
Hebrews 12:15 "Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled..."
1 Timothy 4:1 "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons."
2 Thessalonians 2:3 "Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition..."
2 Peter 2:1 "But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction."
2 Peter 2:20–21 "For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness..."
2 Peter 3:17 "...beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked..."
Galatians 5:4 "You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace."
1 Timothy 5:12 "...having condemnation because they have cast off their first faith."
1 Timothy 6:10 "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
Luke 8:13 "But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away."
1 Corinthians 8:11 & Romans 14:15 "And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?" / "Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died."
2 Timothy 2:17–18 "...of whom are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some."
⚖️ Promises That Hang on a Word: The "If" Passages
John 15:6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned."
John 8:31 "Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, 'If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.'"
1 John 2:24–25 "Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He has promised us — eternal life."
Colossians 1:22–23 "...to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight — if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel..."
1 Corinthians 15:1–2 "Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain."
Hebrews 3:12–13 "Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily... lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."
Hebrews 3:14 "For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end."
Romans 11:20–22 "Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off."
2 Peter 1:10–11 "Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
Revelation 2:10 & Revelation 3:11 "...Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life." / "Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown."
🛑 Willful Sin and the Danger of Disqualification
Hebrews 4:1 & Hebrews 4:11 "...let us fear lest any of you seem to come short of it." / "Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience."
Hebrews 10:26–29 "For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?"
Hebrews 10:38–39 "'Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.' But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul."
1 Corinthians 6:9–10 & Galatians 5:19–21 "Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers... will inherit the kingdom of God." / "...of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."
1 Corinthians 9:27 "But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified."
1 Corinthians 10:12 "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."
Matthew 10:32–33 "Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven."
2 Timothy 2:12 "If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us."
James 5:19–20 "Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins."
Luke 9:62 "But Jesus said to him, 'No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.'"
📖 Names Blotted Out: The Book of Life and Enduring to the End
Revelation 3:5 "He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life..."
Revelation 22:19 "And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."
Revelation 14:9–12 "Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 'If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb...' Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."
Matthew 24:12–13 "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved."
📜 The Old Testament Principle: Righteousness Can Be Forsaken
Exodus 32:32–33 "Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written. And the Lord said to Moses, 'Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.'"
1 Chronicles 28:9 "...if you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever."
2 Chronicles 15:2 "The Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you."
Ezekiel 18:24 "But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty, and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die."
Ezekiel 33:12–13 "...the righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression... when I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, but he trusts in his own righteousness and commits iniquity, none of his righteous works shall be remembered; but because of the iniquity that he has committed, he shall die because of it."
Jeremiah 17:13 "O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be ashamed. 'Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.'"
🔍 The OSAS Proof Texts Examined
📌 These are the passages most often offered as proof that a believer cannot fall. Each is quoted, set back in its context, and weighed for what it actually claims — and, just as importantly, for what it never says.
"I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand."
💡 Theological Critique:
Notice what the promise actually guards against: snatching. Christ pledges that no outside power — wolf, persecutor, or devil — can tear a sheep out of His hand. He does not pledge that a sheep cannot wander off. Notice also who is holding the promise: verse 27 identifies them with continuous present participles (akouousin, akolouthousin) — those who keep on hearing His voice and keep on following Him. No power in creation can pry that hand open. Nothing here says the sheep cannot walk out of it.
"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life."
💡 Theological Critique:
Both verbs are present participles — literally, "the one hearing My word and believing Him who sent Me." Jesus is not describing a transaction in someone's past but a posture in someone's present. The one who is hearing and believing has eternal life now, has passed from death to life now. The sentence makes no provision for a man who once heard and no longer believes. It is the same grammar of continuance found in John 8:31 and John 15:6 above.
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons... nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
💡 Theological Critique:
Read Paul's inventory closely: death, life, angels, rulers, powers, height, depth, "any other created thing." Every item is something that happens to a person. The one force he never names is the person himself. Paul's guarantee is that nothing outside us can turn God's love away — not that a man cannot turn away from it. God's love is unfailing; Scripture never wavers on that. What Scripture also never does is confuse being loved by God with remaining faithful to Him. Paul draws that very line himself three chapters later (Romans 11:20–22: "You stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble... note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off").
"For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son... Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."
💡 Theological Critique:
The "golden chain" traces the shape of God's redemptive purpose — foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified — for those "who love Him, who are called according to His purpose" (v. 28). It maps the road God has laid down and pledges that He will not abandon it. It is not a roster of names guaranteed to reach the end of it. Paul is stating a settled fact about God's program, not an exemption for every individual professor; and he adds the qualification himself three chapters later, where branches that do not continue are cut off (Romans 11:20–22).
"If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself."
💡 Theological Critique:
Lifted alone, this reads as a promise that God saves a man even after he abandons faith. Read with the line directly before it, it says the opposite. Verse 12 is explicit: "If we deny Him, He also will deny us." Verse 13 does not cancel that warning — it grounds it. God's faithfulness is faithfulness to His own word, His own character, His own covenant, which includes the promise to deny those who deny Him. "He cannot deny Himself" is not an escape clause for the unfaithful; it is the reason the warning in verse 12 is certain to stand.
"When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance..." / "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."
💡 Theological Critique:
In the ancient world a seal (sphragis) marked ownership and authenticity — a stamp declaring whose a thing is, not a lock that cannot be broken. The arrhabōn, the down payment, secures the promise from God's side; neither image says a word about binding the human side. Paul supplies the caution himself in the same letter: the Spirit who seals can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30), and Hebrews warns of the man who has "insulted the Spirit of grace" (Hebrews 10:29). A seal marks a man as God's. It does not make him incapable of repudiating the mark.
"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
💡 Theological Critique:
This is a pastor's confidence in a congregation he loves, not a metaphysical guarantee stamped on every individual within it. Paul tells us what he means six verses later, addressing the very same people (Philippians 2:12–13): "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you." Divine enablement and human obedience are not rivals here — but neither is God's work described as something that proceeds without us. The confidence is real. So is the command.
"All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away."
💡 Theological Critique:
The promise concerns Christ's reception, not the disciple's persistence: whoever comes will never be turned away. It tells us what Jesus will not do. It says nothing about what a man may do. The proof stands in the same chapter (John 6:66): after a hard saying, "many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him." Jesus did not drive them out — they left. And His High Priestly Prayer states the exception outright: of those the Father gave Him, "none of them is lost except the son of perdition" (John 17:12). Judas was counted among "those You gave Me" — and was lost.
"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life."
💡 Theological Critique:
John writes so that believers may know — and he spends the letter telling them how one knows: by keeping His commandments (1 John 2:3–4), by loving the brethren (1 John 3:14), and by not going on in sin (1 John 3:6–9). Assurance in this epistle is evidential, read off a life in progress. It certifies where a man stands today; it does not insure him against where he may go tomorrow.
"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us."
💡 Theological Critique:
John is identifying a particular group — the antichrists he names in the previous verse — whose departure exposed what they had always been. He is diagnosing them, not legislating for everyone. Read as a universal law, this one verse would have to overrule the plain description of those who "tasted the heavenly gift... and have fallen away" (Hebrews 6:4–6, above) and of those who "escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord" before being entangled again (2 Peter 2:20–21, above). A verse about false teachers who left cannot be made to erase passages about a genuine possession genuinely lost.
"...who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."
💡 Theological Critique:
"Kept by the power of God" is the half of the verse most often quoted — "through faith" (Greek: dia pisteōs) is the half that quietly goes missing. Peter names the instrument along with the guardian: God's power garrisons the believer, but it garrisons him through an ongoing, living faith, not around it or in place of it. It does not preserve a man unconditionally or mechanically, the way a vault preserves whatever is locked inside it. Drop the qualifying phrase and the verse says something Peter never wrote.
"To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy..."
💡 Theological Critique:
"Able to keep" — the ability is God's, and it is absolute. The question is how that keeping reaches a man, and Jude answers it in his own vocabulary. He opens by calling his readers those "kept for Jesus Christ" (tetērēmenois), then uses the same verb to command them: "Keep yourselves in the love of God" (tērēsate) (Jude 1:21). One keeping, two parties. The doxology and the command belong to each other.
⚡ Those Who Fell: Grace Received, Grace Forfeited
🏛️ From the rebellion in heaven before Eden to the churches of Asia after Pentecost, Scripture keeps a record of those who held a real standing before God and lost it. Not skeptics or outsiders — an anointed cherub, a chosen king, an apostle, whole congregations. Each account below names what was possessed, what was done, and what was forfeited.
🌌 Primordial and Angelic Falls
🔥 Lucifer / Satan
(Isaiah 14:12–15; Ezekiel 28:12–17; Luke 10:18) —
The anointed cherub who covered the throne, in Eden, on the holy mountain of God — "perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you." Pride, not weakness, undid him, and he was cast down. If nearness to God guaranteed permanence, it would have saved him first.
⛓️ The Watchers / Rebel Angels
(2 Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6) —
Heavenly beings holding rank and authority in the presence of God, who "did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling." They were not overthrown — they left. They are now held in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.
🍎 Adam and Eve
(Genesis 3:22–24) —
They walked with God in the cool of the day, in a garden made for them, under a single prohibition. One act of disobedience ended it: driven out, and the way to the Tree of Life barred by a flaming sword. The first loss of grace occurred in a perfect world, with no history of sin behind it.
👑 Old Testament Figures and Israel
🩸 Cain
(Genesis 4:11–16) —
He brought offerings to Yahweh and was answered by Him face to face, warned that sin crouched at his door and could still be mastered. He chose his brother's blood instead — and went out from the presence of the Lord, cursed and wandering. He had the warning, the audience, and the choice.
🧂 Lot's Wife
(Genesis 19:26; Luke 17:32) —
Already out of Sodom, already on the road, already pulled clear by the hands of angels — and she looked back, longing for the world she was leaving. Deliverance had reached her; it did not hold her. Jesus reduces her whole life to a three-word warning — "Remember Lot's wife" — and adds, "Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it."
🍲 Esau
(Genesis 25:33–34; Hebrews 12:16–17) —
Isaac's firstborn, holding by birth the covenant blessing that Jacob had to scheme to obtain — and he traded it for one bowl of stew, because he was hungry. Scripture's verdict is four words: "Esau despised his birthright." When he wanted it back, it was gone: he "found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears."
🏜️ The Exodus Generation
(Numbers 14:26–35; Psalm 95:10–11; 1 Corinthians 10:1–12; Hebrews 3:16–19) —
Marked by the Passover blood, brought through the sea, fed with bread from heaven — Paul says they were all baptized into Moses and all drank from the same spiritual Rock, "and that Rock was Christ." Then, at the border of the land, they refused to believe. God swore in His wrath that they would never enter His rest, and their bodies fell in the wilderness. Paul recounts it and states the lesson himself: "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."
🔮 Balaam
(Numbers 22–24; 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 1:11) —
A prophet who heard the voice of Yahweh directly and spoke nothing over Israel but the truth — yet, Peter and Jude both testify, he "loved the wages of unrighteousness." Unable to curse God's people for hire, he taught Balak how to seduce them into idolatry and immorality instead, and died at the edge of Israel's own sword, judged by the nation he was paid to destroy. Genuine revelation did not make him incorruptible.
👑 King Saul
(1 Samuel 15:23–26; 1 Samuel 16:14) —
God anointed him, gave him another heart, and sent His Spirit upon him until he prophesied among the prophets (1 Samuel 10:6; 1 Samuel 10:9). Then came the disobedience he defended as devotion, and the verdict: "Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king." The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul. A new heart was given, and a new heart was lost.
🏛️ King Solomon
(1 Kings 11:1–11) —
The Lord appeared to him twice, and gave him wisdom no man before or after would match. His ruin was not a crisis but a slow drift: "when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God." The kingdom was torn from his house. Wisdom does not keep a heart; only loyalty does.
👑 King Joash (Jehoash)
(2 Chronicles 24:17–22) —
Hidden as an infant from the slaughter of the royal house and crowned at seven, he repaired the Temple and did what was right in the sight of the Lord — "all the days of Jehoiada the priest." When Jehoiada died, Joash abandoned the house of the Lord for idols and had the old priest's own son, the prophet Zechariah, stoned in the Temple court for rebuking him. He was faithful exactly as long as the man beside him was.
🏰 The Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel
(2 Kings 17:7–23; Jeremiah 25:8–11) —
God's own treasured possession above all peoples on the earth (Exodus 19:5), bound to Him by covenant at Sinai. They broke it with generations of idolatry until the land itself vomited them out — Israel into Assyria, Judah into Babylon. Being chosen did not exempt them from the terms of the covenant that chose them.
✝️ New Testament and Church Era
🪙 Judas Iscariot
(Matthew 10:1–4; John 17:12; Psalm 109:8; Acts 1:20, 24–25; Matthew 26:24) —
Chosen by Christ Himself as one of the Twelve and sent out with real authority to cast out demons and heal every disease. He kept the money box, and he sold the One who gave him the office. In the High Priestly Prayer Jesus numbers him among "those You gave Me," then names the exception: "none of them is lost except the son of perdition." Peter says he fell "by transgression" from the ministry he had received, so that Psalm 109:8 was fulfilled — "let another take his office." Christ pronounced the epitaph: "It would have been good for that man if he had not been born."
🤥 Ananias and Sapphira
(Acts 5:1–11) —
Members in good standing of the Jerusalem church, in the days when believers held everything in common, they sold a piece of property and secretly held back part of the price while claiming to have given it all. Peter names precisely what had happened inside them: "Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit." Both fell dead where they stood — judged not by outsiders, but from within the fellowship they belonged to.
🪄 Simon the Sorcerer
(Acts 8:13, 18–24) —
Scripture states it without qualification: under Philip's preaching in Samaria, Simon himself "believed and was baptized," and continued on with Philip, astonished at the signs and miracles. Yet when he saw the Holy Spirit given through the apostles' hands, he offered money to buy the power for himself. Peter's verdict is severe: "I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity" — and he calls the baptized believer to repent, that "the thought of your heart may be forgiven you." A genuine profession did not immunize a corrupted heart.
⚖️ The Unforgiving Servant
(Matthew 18:23–35) —
A debt past all hope of repayment, cancelled outright by his king's compassion — and then reinstated. The forgiven man seized a fellow servant over a trifle, and his master handed him to the torturers "until he should pay all that was due." Jesus leaves no room to read it as a story about somebody else: "So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses." Forgiveness genuinely granted was genuinely withdrawn.
📜 The Galatian Christians
(Galatians 5:4) —
Paul does not soften the wording for churches he founded himself: "You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace." Both verbs assume a prior standing. No one is estranged from a Christ he never held, or falls from a grace he never stood in.
🌿 The Unfruitful Branches in Christ
(John 15:2; John 15:6) —
Jesus locates them precisely: "every branch in Me that does not bear fruit." They are in the vine — attached, alive to all appearances, drawing on the stock — and they are still taken away. "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned."
⚓ Hymenaeus and Alexander
(1 Timothy 1:19–20) —
Paul says they thrust away a good conscience and "concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck." A shipwreck presupposes a ship — launched, loaded, and under way. He delivered them to Satan, "that they may learn not to blaspheme."
🌍 Demas
(Colossians 4:14; Philemon 1:24; 2 Timothy 4:10) —
Named twice among Paul's fellow laborers, listed in the same breath as Luke. The final mention is one line long: "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world." No heresy, no persecution, no argument — only a preference.
🔥 The Apostates of Hebrews
(Hebrews 6:4–6; Hebrews 10:26–31) —
The writer piles up terms that cannot describe a pretender: once enlightened, having tasted the heavenly gift, partakers of the Holy Spirit, having tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come. Then the hinge: "if they fall away." What waits for them is not a forfeited reward but "a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries."
🕯️ The Ephesian and Laodicean Churches
(Revelation 2:4–5; Revelation 3:15–16) —
Ephesus was commended for its labor, its endurance, and its refusal to tolerate false apostles, and still told: "you have left your first love... I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place — unless you repent." To Laodicea: "because you are lukewarm... I will vomit you out of My mouth." Christ addresses both as His own, and tells both exactly what He will do if they do not return.
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🕊️ Compiled for study and reflection — weigh every passage for yourself. Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version unless otherwise noted.