Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that everyone will see your progress. ¹ 

Why not? Because they pursued ¹  it not by faith but (as if it were possible) by works. ²  They stumbled over the stumbling stone, ³ 

Only his flesh has pain for himself, ¹  and he mourns for himself.” ² 

And the light shines on ¹  in the darkness, ²  but ³  the darkness has not mastered it. ⁴ 

Keep thinking about things above, not things on the earth,

Though rulers plot and slander me, ¹  your servant meditates on your statutes.

I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your rules.

Your head crowns ¹  you like Mount Carmel. ²  The locks of your hair ³  are like royal tapestries ⁴  – the king is held captive ⁵  in its tresses!

Now when Silas and Timothy arrived ¹  from Macedonia, ²  Paul became wholly absorbed with proclaiming ³  the word, testifying ⁴  to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. ⁵ 

because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so.

those who use the world as though they were not using it to the full. For the present shape of this world is passing away.

For people ¹  will be lovers of themselves, ²  lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,

Animals torn by wild beasts I never brought to you; I always absorbed the loss myself. ¹  You always made me pay for every missing animal, ²  whether it was taken by day or at night.

yes, while I was still praying, ¹  the man Gabriel, whom I had seen previously ²  in a vision, was approaching me in my state of extreme weariness, ³  around the time of the evening offering.

And do this ¹  because we know ²  the time, that it is already the hour for us to awake from sleep, for our salvation is now nearer than when we became believers.