Judah replied, “What can we say ¹  to my lord? What can we speak? How can we clear ourselves? ²  God has exposed the sin of your servants! ³  We are now my lord’s slaves, we and the one in whose possession the cup was found.”

They lament, ¹  ‘Why don’t you notice when we fast? Why don’t you pay attention when we humble ourselves?’ Look, at the same time you fast, you satisfy your selfish desires, ²  you oppress your workers. ³ 

King Hezekiah and all the people of Judah did not put him to death, did they? Did not Hezekiah show reverence for the Lord and seek the Lord’s favor? ¹  Did not ²  the Lord forgo destroying them ³  as he threatened he would? But we are on the verge of bringing great disaster on ourselves.” ⁴ 

But we have rejected ¹  shameful hidden deeds, ²  not behaving ³  with deceptiveness ⁴  or distorting the word of God, but by open proclamation of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience before God.

The sin we committed at Peor was bad enough. To this very day we have not purified ourselves; it even brought a plague on the community of the Lord. ¹ 

Each one says, ¹  ‘Come on, I’ll get some wine! Let’s guzzle some beer! Tomorrow will be just like today! We’ll have everything we want!’ ² 

and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins ¹  against us. And do not lead us into temptation.” ² 

So we decided to build this altar, not for burnt offerings and sacrifices,

So when we could bear it no longer, we decided to stay on in Athens ¹  alone.

For we were not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach as far as you, because we were the first to reach as far as you with the gospel about Christ. ¹ 

For we too were once foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another.

For none of us lives for himself and none dies for himself.

We even saw the Nephilim ¹  there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves ²  and to them.” ³ 

Acknowledge that the Lord is God! He made us and we belong to him; ¹  we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

They will ask the way to Zion; they will turn their faces toward it. They will come ¹  and bind themselves to the Lord in a lasting covenant that will never be forgotten. ² 

They replied, “The man questioned us ¹  thoroughly ²  about ourselves and our family, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ ³  So we answered him in this way. ⁴  How could we possibly know ⁵  that he would say, ⁶  ‘Bring your brother down’?”

If we have built ¹  an altar for ourselves to turn back from following the Lord by making ²  burnt sacrifices and grain offerings on it, or by offering ³  tokens of peace ⁴  on it, the Lord himself will punish us. ⁵ 

They say, ¹  “Let’s tear off the shackles they’ve put on us! ²  Let’s free ourselves from ³  their ropes!”

And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior ¹  of the world.

Therefore we ¹  ought to support such people, so that we become coworkers in cooperation with the truth. ²