Look, your fasting is accompanied by ¹  arguments, brawls, and fistfights. ²  Do not fast as you do today, trying to make your voice heard in heaven.

I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. ¹  They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ²  They do not know what their God requires of them. ³ 

What will you say ¹  when the Lord ²  appoints as rulers over you those allies that you, yourself, had actually prepared as such? ³  Then anguish and agony will grip you like that of a woman giving birth to a baby. ⁴ 

Therefore say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: You eat the meat with the blood still in it, ¹  pray to ²  your idols, and shed blood. Do you really think you will possess ³  the land?

They consult their wooden idols, and their diviner’s staff answers with an oracle. The wind of prostitution blows them astray; they commit spiritual adultery ¹  against their God.

Someday these sinners will cry to the Lord for help, ¹  but he will not answer them. He will hide his face from them at that time, because they have done such wicked deeds.”

It is enough for the disciple to become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house ‘Beelzebul,’ how much more will they defame the members of his household!

While they were going away, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness ¹  to see? A reed shaken by the wind? ² 

When ¹  the men came to Jesus, ²  they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, ³  ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’” ⁴ 

When ¹  John’s messengers had gone, Jesus ²  began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness ³  to see? A reed shaken by the wind? ⁴ 

Then ¹  he said to them all, ²  “If anyone wants to become my follower, ³  he must deny ⁴  himself, take up his cross daily, ⁵  and follow me.

and they said, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

Then they began asking ¹  him, “Who is your father?” Jesus answered, “You do not know either me or my Father. If you knew me you would know my Father too.” ² 

a promise ¹  that our twelve tribes hope to attain as they earnestly serve God ²  night and day. Concerning this hope the Jews are accusing me, ³  Your Majesty! ⁴ 

But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members.

when I go to Spain. For I hope to visit you when I pass through and that you will help me ¹  on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

Or is he not surely speaking for our benefit? It was written for us, because the one plowing and threshing ought to work in hope of enjoying the harvest.

So then, let no one treat him with contempt. But send him on his way in peace so that he may come to me. For I am expecting him with the brothers. ¹ 

Therefore, remember what you received and heard, ¹  and obey it, ²  and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will never ³  know at what hour I will come against ⁴  you.

So all of you approached me and said, “Let’s send some men ahead of us to scout out the land and bring us back word as to how we should attack it and what the cities are like there.”