Then Felix, ¹  who understood the facts ²  concerning the Way ³  more accurately, ⁴  adjourned their hearing, ⁵  saying, “When Lysias the commanding officer comes down, I will decide your case.” ⁶ 

Paul replied, “I pray to God that whether in a short or a long time ¹  not only you but also all those who are listening to me today could become such as I am, except for these chains.” ² 

Since many of them had no desire to eat, ¹  Paul ²  stood up ³  among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me ⁴  and not put out to sea ⁵  from Crete, thus avoiding ⁶  this damage and loss.

But they encountered a patch of crosscurrents ¹  and ran the ship aground; the bow stuck fast and could not be moved, but the stern was being broken up by the force ²  of the waves.

Is this blessedness ¹  then for ²  the circumcision ³  or also for ⁴  the uncircumcision? For we say, “faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.” ⁵ 

Without being weak in faith, he considered ¹  his own body as dead ²  (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

We know that ¹  our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, ²  so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

So, my brothers and sisters, ¹  you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God. ² 

For when we were in the flesh, ¹  the sinful desires, ²  aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body ³  to bear fruit for death.

For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?

For who concedes you any superiority? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you did not?

If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, ¹  but do not have love, I receive no benefit.

Indeed we felt as if the sentence of death had been passed against us, ¹  so that we would not trust in ourselves ²  but in God who raises the dead.

Until ¹  certain people came from James, he had been eating with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he stopped doing this ²  and separated himself ³  because he was afraid of those who were pro-circumcision. ⁴ 

Does God then give ¹  you the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law ²  or by your believing what you heard? ³ 

What I am saying is this: The law that came four hundred thirty years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, ¹  so as to invalidate the promise.

Where then is your sense of happiness ¹  now? For I testify about you that if it were possible, you would have pulled out your eyes and given them to me!

For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren woman who does not bear children; ¹  break forth and shout, you who have no birth pains, because the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than those of the woman who has a husband.” ² 

envying, ¹  murder, ²  drunkenness, carousing, ³  and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!

To me – less than the least of all the saints ¹  – this grace was given, ²  to proclaim to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ