Increase ¹  your merchants more than the stars of heaven! They are like ²  the young locust which sheds ³  its skin and flies away.

Tyre built herself a fortification and piled up silver like dust and gold like the mud of the streets!

Then Herod ¹  privately summoned the wise men and determined from them when the star had appeared.

The one who rejects me and does not accept ¹  my words has a judge; ²  the word ³  I have spoken will judge him at the last day.

They did not find me arguing ¹  with anyone or stirring up a crowd ²  in the temple courts ³  or in the synagogues ⁴  or throughout the city, ⁵ 

And now I advise ¹  you to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only the ship will be lost. ² 

But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires. ¹  For apart from the law, sin is dead.

Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you not competent to settle trivial suits?

Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body” ¹  – but the immoral person sins against his own body.

Now food will not bring us close to God. We are no worse if we do not eat and no better if we do.

For if the eagerness is present, the gift itself ¹  is acceptable according to whatever one has, not according to what he does not have.

Now God ¹  who provides seed for the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your supply of seed and will cause the harvest of your righteousness to grow.

Let each one examine ¹  his own work. Then he can take pride ²  in himself and not compare himself with ³  someone else.

Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh – who are called “uncircumcision” by the so-called “circumcision” that is performed on the body ¹  by human hands –

Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he captured ¹  captives; he gave gifts to men.” ² 

They are darkened in their understanding, ¹  being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.

And I pray this, that your love may abound even more and more in knowledge and every kind of insight

My aim is to know him, ¹  to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, ²  and to be like him in his death,

For some of these insinuate themselves ¹  into households and captivate weak women ²  who are overwhelmed with sins and led along by various passions.

And just as Jannes and Jambres ¹  opposed Moses, so these people – who have warped minds and are disqualified in the faith ²  – also oppose the truth.