What if there are fifty godly people in the city? Will you really wipe it out and not spare ¹  the place for the sake of the fifty godly people who are in it?

Is it of any special benefit ¹  to the Almighty that you should be righteous, or is it any gain to him that you make your ways blameless? ² 

May the evil deeds of the wicked ¹  come to an end! ²  But make the innocent ³  secure, ⁴  O righteous God, you who examine ⁵  inner thoughts and motives! ⁶ 

Moreover, keep me from committing flagrant ¹  sins; do not allow such sins to control me. ²  Then I will be blameless, and innocent of blatant ³  rebellion.

The Lord gives sight to the blind. The Lord lifts up all who are bent over. ¹  The Lord loves the godly.

Give instruction ¹  to a wise person, ²  and he will become wiser still; teach ³  a righteous person and he will add to his ⁴  learning.

Do not lie in wait like the wicked ¹  against the place where the righteous live; do not assault ²  his home.

How tragic that the once-faithful city has become a prostitute! ¹  She was once a center of ²  justice, fairness resided in her, but now only murderers. ³ 

and follows my statutes and observes my regulations by carrying them out. ¹  That man ²  is righteous; he will certainly live, ³  declares the sovereign Lord.

But upright men will punish them appropriately for their adultery and bloodshed, ¹  because they are adulteresses and blood is on their hands.

Its jambs ¹  faced the outer court, and it had decorative palm trees on its jambs, on either side, and its stairway had eight steps.

Because Joseph, her husband to be, ¹  was a righteous man, and because he did not want to disgrace her, he intended to divorce her ²  privately.

Go and learn what this saying means: ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice.’ ¹  For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. ¹  The one who has ears had better listen! ² 

Then the righteous will answer him, ¹  ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?

Then ¹  you will be blessed, ²  because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid ³  at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Now when the centurion ¹  saw what had happened, he praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent!” ² 

(For rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person perhaps someone might possibly dare to die.) ¹ 

For the eyes of the Lord are ¹  upon the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. But the Lord’s face is against those who do evil. ² 

So Achish summoned David and said to him, “As surely as the Lord lives, you are an honest man, and I am glad to have you ¹  serving ²  with me in the army. ³  I have found no fault with you from the day that you first came to me until the present time. But in the opinion ⁴  of the leaders, you are not reliable. ⁵