Will you still say, “I am a god,” before the one who kills you – though you are a man and not a god – when you are in the power of those who wound you?

“If ¹  you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners ²  love those who love them. ³ 

Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, ¹  a time ²  is coming when you will worship ³  the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

So in this case I say to you, stay away from these men and leave them alone, because if this plan or this undertaking originates with people, ¹  it will come to nothing, ² 

but since it concerns points of disagreement ¹  about words and names and your own law, settle ²  it yourselves. I will not be ³  a judge of these things!”

So, brothers and sisters, ¹  I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but instead as people of the flesh, ²  as infants in Christ.

And they did this not just as we had hoped, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and to us by the will of God.

And besides that, going around ¹  from house to house they learn to be lazy, ²  and they are not only lazy, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things they should not. ³ 

But ¹  these men, ²  like irrational animals – creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed ³  – do not understand whom ⁴  they are insulting, and consequently ⁵  in their destruction they will be destroyed, ⁶ 

For we have been sold ¹  – both I and my people – to destruction and to slaughter and to annihilation! If we had simply been sold as male and female slaves, I would have remained silent, for such distress would not have been sufficient for troubling the king.”

Jeroboam son of Nebat, a servant of Solomon son of David, rose up and rebelled against his master.

“Now a word was secretly ¹  brought ²  to me, and my ear caught ³  a whisper ⁴  of it.

“Is ¹  a mortal man ²  righteous ³  before ⁴  God? Or a man pure ⁵  before his Creator? ⁶ 

Do you intend to criticize mere words, and treat ¹  the words of a despairing man as wind?

Yes, you would gamble ¹  for the fatherless, and auction off ²  your friend.

“What is mankind ¹  that you make so much of them, ²  and that you pay attention ³  to them?

“Truly, ¹  I know that this is so. But how ²  can a human ³  be just before ⁴  God? ⁵ 

Are your days like the days of a mortal, or your years like the years ¹  of a mortal,

What is man that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?

how much less a mortal man, who is but a maggot ¹  – a son of man, who is only a worm!”