12. As you go into the house, give your greetings and wish it well.
13. Then if indeed that house is deserving, let come upon it your peace [that is, freedom from all the distresses that are experienced as the result of sin]. But if it is not deserving, let your peace return to you.
14. And whoever will not receive and accept and welcome you nor listen to your message, as you leave that house or town, shake the dust [of it] from your feet.
15. Truly I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.
16. Behold, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves; be wary and wise as serpents, and be innocent (harmless, guileless, and without falsity) as doves. [Gen. 3:1.]
17. Be on guard against men [whose way or nature is to act in opposition to God]; for they will deliver you up to councils and flog you in their synagogues,
18. And you will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a witness to bear testimony before them and to the Gentiles (the nations).
19. But when they deliver you up, do not be anxious about how or what you are to speak; for what you are to say will be given you in that very hour and moment,
20. For it is not you who are speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
21. Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child; and children will take a stand against their parents and will have them put to death.
22. And you will be hated by all for My name's sake, but he who perseveres and endures to the end will be saved [from spiritual disease and death in the world to come].