Furthermore, be aware of the fact ¹  that you have no authority to impose tax, tribute, or toll on any of the priests, the Levites, the musicians, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or the attendants at the temple of this God.

It is terrible ¹  to punish ²  a righteous person, and to flog ³  honorable men is wrong. ⁴ 

King Hezekiah of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria, who was at Lachish, “I have violated our treaty. ¹  If you leave, I will do whatever you demand.” ²  So the king of Assyria demanded that King Hezekiah of Judah pay three hundred talents ³  of silver and thirty talents of gold.

The rules you impose are just, ¹  and absolutely reliable.

But you must require ¹  of them the same quota of bricks that they were making before. ²  Do not reduce it, for they are slackers. ³  That is why they are crying, ‘Let us go sacrifice to our God.’

And if a peace-loving person ¹  is there, your peace will remain on him, but if not, it will return to you. ² 

For it seemed best to the Holy Spirit and to us ¹  not to place any greater burden on you than these necessary rules: ² 

The faith ¹  you have, keep to yourself before God. Blessed is the one who does not judge himself by what he approves.

You must do what you are instructed, and the verdict they pronounce to you, without fail. Do not deviate right or left from what they tell you.

But the man who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not do so from faith, and whatever is not from faith is sin. ¹ 

For you recall, brothers and sisters, ¹  our toil and drudgery: By working night and day so as not to impose a burden on any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.

and we did not eat anyone’s food without paying. ¹  Instead, in toil and drudgery we worked ²  night and day in order not to burden any of you.

But to the rest of you in Thyatira, all who do not hold to this teaching ¹  (who have not learned the so-called “deep secrets ²  of Satan”), to you I say: I do not put any additional burden on you.

As much as ¹  she exalted herself and lived in sensual luxury, ²  to this extent give her torment and grief because she said to herself, ³  ‘I rule as queen and am no widow; I will never experience grief!’

Therefore, tell the Israelites, ‘I am the Lord. I will bring you out ¹  from your enslavement to ²  the Egyptians, I will rescue you from the hard labor they impose, ³  and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

“If men fight and hit a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, ¹  but there is no serious injury, he will surely be punished in accordance with what the woman’s husband demands of him, and he will pay what the court decides. ² 

Therefore, because you make the poor pay taxes on their crops ¹  and exact a grain tax from them, you will not live in the houses you built with chiseled stone, nor will you drink the wine from the fine ²  vineyards you planted. ³