Indeed ¹  I am composed and quiet, ²  like a young child carried by its mother; ³  I am content like the young child I carry. ⁴ 

I have given orders to my chosen soldiers; ¹  I have summoned the warriors through whom I will vent my anger, ²  my boasting, arrogant ones. ³ 

And when the blood of your witness ¹  Stephen was shed, ²  I myself was standing nearby, approving, ³  and guarding the cloaks ⁴  of those who were killing him.’ ⁵ 

Now I will most gladly spend and be spent for your lives! ¹  If I love you more, am I to be loved less?

But be that as it may, I have not burdened you. Yet because I was a crafty person, I took you in by deceit!

I myself will set my face ¹  against that man and cut him off from the midst of his people, ²  because he has given some of his children to Molech and thereby defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. ³ 

I myself will set my face against that man and his clan. I will cut off from the midst of their people both him and all who follow after him in spiritual prostitution, ¹  to commit prostitution by worshiping Molech. ² 

David said to Jonathan, “Tomorrow is the new moon, and I am certainly expected to join the king for a meal. ¹  You must send me away so I can hide in the field until the third evening from now.

Haman said, “Furthermore, Queen Esther invited ¹  only me to accompany the king to the banquet that she prepared! And also tomorrow I am invited ²  along with the king.

I thought to myself, “God will judge both the righteous and the wicked; for there is an appropriate time for every activity, and there is a time of judgment ¹  for every deed.

Then I myself will regather those of my people ¹  who are still alive from all the countries where I have driven them. I will bring them back to their homeland. ²  They will greatly increase in number.

“Son of man, these men have erected their idols in their hearts and placed the obstacle leading to their iniquity ¹  right before their faces. Should I really allow them to seek ²  me?

The inhabitants of one will go to another and say, “Let’s go up at once to ask the favor of the Lord, to seek the Lord who rules over all. Indeed, I’ll go with you.”’

So I ¹  began to shepherd the flock destined for slaughter, the most afflicted ²  of all the flock. Then I took two staffs, ³  calling one “Pleasantness” ⁴  and the other “Binders,” ⁵  and I tended the flock.

Then Jesus said, ¹  “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, ²  and I do nothing on my own initiative, ³  but I speak just what the Father taught me. ⁴ 

No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down ¹  of my own free will. ²  I have the authority ³  to lay it down, and I have the authority ⁴  to take it back again. This commandment ⁵  I received from my Father.”

When the governor gestured for him to speak, Paul replied, “Because I know ¹  that you have been a judge over this nation for many years, I confidently make my defense. ² 

I encourage you, then, be imitators of me.

I have become a fool. You yourselves forced me to do it, for I should have been commended by you. For I lack nothing in comparison ¹  to those “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing.

If I lift myself up, ¹  you hunt me as a fierce lion, ²  and again ³  you display your power ⁴  against me.