Therefore I am content with ¹  weaknesses, with insults, with troubles, with persecutions and difficulties ²  for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

For you have heard of my former way of life ¹  in Judaism, how I was savagely persecuting the church of God and trying to destroy it.

They were only hearing, “The one who once persecuted us is now proclaiming the good news ¹  of the faith he once tried to destroy.”

But just as at that time the one born by natural descent ¹  persecuted the one born according to the Spirit, ²  so it is now.

even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor, and an arrogant ¹  man. But I was treated with mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief,

he is conceited and understands nothing, but has an unhealthy interest in controversies and verbal disputes. This gives rise to envy, dissension, slanders, evil suspicions,

(the world was not worthy of them); they wandered in deserts and mountains and caves and openings in the earth.

Now ¹  when the dragon realized ²  that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.

Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their adversaries, who oppressed them. But in the time of their distress they called to you, and you heard from heaven. In your abundant compassion you provided them with deliverers to rescue them from ¹  their adversaries.

Why do you forget ¹  the Lord, who made you, who stretched out the sky ²  and founded the earth? Why do you constantly tremble all day long ³  at the anger of the oppressor, when he makes plans to destroy? Where is the anger of the oppressor? ⁴ 

Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain ¹  that your descendants will be strangers ²  in a foreign country. ³  They will be enslaved and oppressed ⁴  for four hundred years.

Abram said to Sarai, “Since your ¹  servant is under your authority, ²  do to her whatever you think best.” ³  Then Sarai treated Hagar ⁴  harshly, ⁵  so she ran away from Sarai. ⁶ 

If you mistreat my daughters or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one else is with us, realize ¹  that God is witness to your actions.” ² 

They made their lives bitter ¹  by ²  hard service with mortar and bricks and by all kinds of service ³  in the fields. Every kind of service the Israelites were required to give was rigorous. ⁴ 

The Lord said, “I have surely seen ¹  the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. ² 

I will take you to myself for a people, and I will be your God. ¹  Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from your enslavement to ²  the Egyptians.

“When a person sins and commits a trespass ¹  against the Lord by deceiving his fellow citizen ²  in regard to something held in trust, or a pledge, or something stolen, or by extorting something from his fellow citizen, ³ 

when it happens that he sins and he is found guilty, ¹  then he must return whatever he had stolen, or whatever he had extorted, or the thing that he had held in trust, ²  or the lost thing that he had found,

and who brought you through the great, fearful desert of venomous serpents ¹  and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow ²  from a flint rock and

As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives.