So Ahab summoned Obadiah, who supervised the palace. (Now Obadiah was a very loyal follower of the Lord. ¹ 

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to become my follower, ¹  he must deny ²  himself, take up his cross, ³  and follow me.

Then ¹  Jesus ²  called the crowd, along with his disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to become my follower, ³  he must deny ⁴  himself, take up his cross, ⁵  and follow me.

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.

You will not abandon me ¹  to Sheol; ²  you will not allow your faithful follower ³  to see ⁴  the Pit. ⁵ 

May lying lips be silenced – lips ¹  that speak defiantly against the innocent ²  with arrogance and contempt!

Another ¹  of the ²  disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”

For whenever someone says, “I am with Paul,” or “I am with Apollos,” are you not merely human? ¹ 

You, however, ¹  have followed my teaching, my ²  way of life, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my endurance,

but instead sought the God of his ancestors ¹  and obeyed ²  his commands, unlike the Israelites. ³ 

Now I mean this, that ¹  each of you is saying, “I am with Paul,” or “I am with Apollos,” or “I am with Cephas,” or “I am with Christ.”

No foreigner who becomes a follower of ¹  the Lord should say, ‘The Lord will certainly ²  exclude me from his people.’ The eunuch should not say, ‘Look, I am like a dried-up tree.’”

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate ¹  his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, ²  he cannot be my disciple.

But I confess this to you, that I worship ¹  the God of our ancestors ²  according to the Way (which they call a sect), believing everything that is according to the law ³  and that is written in the prophets.

But when I leave you, the Lord’s spirit will carry you away so I can’t find you. ¹  If I go tell Ahab I’ve seen you, he won’t be able to find you and he will kill me. ²  That would not be fair, ³  because your servant has been a loyal follower of ⁴  the Lord from my youth.

Now a wife of one of the prophets ¹  appealed ²  to Elisha for help, saying, “Your servant, my husband is dead. You know that your servant was a loyal follower of the Lord. ³  Now the creditor is coming to take away my two boys to be his servants.”