With regard to food sacrificed to idols, we know that “we all have knowledge.” ¹  Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

Remember ¹  that my life is but a breath, that ²  my eyes will never again ³  see happiness.

People ¹  are like a vapor, their days like a shadow that disappears. ² 

You ¹  do not know about tomorrow. What is your life like? ²  For you are a puff of smoke ³  that appears for a short time and then vanishes.

But the eyes of the wicked fail, ¹  and escape ²  eludes them; their one hope ³  is to breathe their last.” ⁴ 

The grass dries up, the flowers wither, when the wind sent by the Lord ¹  blows on them. Surely humanity ²  is like grass.

And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

I fear for you that my work for you may have been in vain.

He will not escape the darkness; ¹  a flame will wither his shoots and he will depart by the breath of God’s mouth. ² 

He is secure at all times. ¹  He has no regard for your commands; ²  he disdains all his enemies. ³ 

Surely people go through life as mere ghosts. ¹  Surely they accumulate worthless wealth without knowing who will eventually haul it away.” ² 

Men are nothing but a mere breath; human beings are unreliable. ¹  When they are weighed in the scales, all of them together are lighter than air. ² 

As smoke is driven away by the wind, so you drive them away. ¹  As wax melts before fire, so the wicked are destroyed before God.

My judgment will carry off all your leaders like a storm wind! ¹  Your allies will go into captivity. Then you will certainly ²  be disgraced and put to shame because of all the wickedness you have done.

and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord ¹  will destroy by the breath of his mouth and wipe out by the manifestation of his arrival.

Now look, you must be trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed staff. If a man leans for support on it, it punctures his hand and wounds him. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt does to all who trust in him.

He will not respect ¹  the gods of his fathers – not even the god loved by women. ²  He will not respect any god; he will elevate himself above them all.

“Then the king ¹  will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every deity and he will utter presumptuous things against the God of gods. He will succeed until the time of ²  wrath is completed, for what has been decreed must occur. ³ 

Let no one who delights in humility and the worship of angels pass judgment on you. That person goes on at great lengths ¹  about what he has supposedly seen, but he is puffed up with empty notions by his fleshly mind. ² 

These men are ¹  dangerous reefs ²  at your love feasts, ³  feasting without reverence, ⁴  feeding only themselves. ⁵  They are ⁶  waterless ⁷  clouds, carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit ⁸  – twice dead, ⁹  uprooted;