For this reason the law lacks power, ¹  and justice is never carried out. ²  Indeed, ³  the wicked intimidate ⁴  the innocent. ⁵  For this reason justice is perverted. ⁶ 

It is of no value ¹  for the soil or for the manure pile; it is to be thrown out. ²  The one who has ears to hear had better listen!” ³ 

The Spirit is the one who gives life; human nature is of no help! ¹  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. ² 

For if they become heirs by the law, faith is empty and the promise is nullified. ¹ 

For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will thwart the cleverness of the intelligent.” ¹ 

Where is the wise man? Where is the expert in the Mosaic law? ¹  Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made the wisdom of the world foolish?

and constant bickering by people corrupted in their minds and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness ¹  is a way of making a profit.

Those who long to be rich, however, stumble into temptation and a trap and many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile.

You know that from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors you were ransomed – not by perishable things like silver or gold,

For if ¹  these things are really yours ²  and are continually increasing, ³  they will keep you from becoming ⁴  ineffective and unproductive in your pursuit of ⁵  knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately. ⁶ 

“I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, ¹  so that you no longer would light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and I will no longer accept an offering from you.

They have made me jealous ¹  with false gods, ²  enraging me with their worthless gods; ³  so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize, ⁴  with a nation slow to learn ⁵  I will enrage them.

Now David had been thinking, ¹  “In vain I guarded everything that belonged to this man in the desert. I didn’t take anything from him. But he has repaid my good with evil.

Their residents are powerless, ¹  they are terrified and ashamed. They are as short-lived as plants in the field, or green vegetation. ²  They are as short-lived as grass on the rooftops ³  when it is scorched by the east wind. ⁴ 

Everyone rejects God; ¹  they are all morally corrupt. ²  None of them does what is right, ³  not even one!

A song of ascents, ²  by Solomon. If the Lord does not build a house, ³  then those who build it work in vain. If the Lord does not guard a city, ⁴  then the watchman stands guard in vain.

When the Moabites plead with all their might at their high places, ¹  and enter their temples to pray, their prayers will be ineffective! ² 

He will wind you up tightly into a ball and throw you into a wide, open land. ¹  There you will die, and there with you will be your impressive chariots, ²  which bring disgrace to the house of your master. ³ 

It shatters in pieces like a clay jar, so shattered to bits that none of it can be salvaged. ¹  Among its fragments one cannot find a shard large enough ²  to scoop a hot coal from a fire ³  or to skim off water from a cistern.” ⁴