Now because we are fellow workers, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain. ¹ 

Charm is deceitful ¹  and beauty is fleeting, ²  but a woman who fears the Lord ³  will be praised.

But I thought, ¹  “I have worked in vain; I have expended my energy for absolutely nothing.” ²  But the Lord will vindicate me; my God will reward me. ³ 

She is harsh ¹  with her young, as if they were not hers; she is unconcerned about the uselessness of her labor.

“It did no good for me to punish your people. They did not respond to such correction. You slaughtered your prophets like a voracious lion.” ¹ 

The fiery bellows of judgment burn fiercely. But there is too much dross to be removed. ¹  The process of refining them has proved useless. ²  The wicked have not been purged.

ע (Ayin) Our eyes continually failed us as we looked in vain for help. ¹  From our watchtowers we watched for a nation that could not rescue us.

and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you – unless you believed in vain.

So then, dear brothers and sisters, ¹  be firm. Do not be moved! Always be outstanding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Those who worship ¹  worthless idols ²  forfeit the mercy that could be theirs. ³ 

If you yourselves have all seen this, Why in the world ¹  do you continue this meaningless talk? ² 

A horse disappoints those who trust in it for victory; ¹  despite its great strength, it cannot deliver.

Give us help against the enemy, for any help men might offer is futile. ¹ 

You despise ¹  all who stray from your statutes, for they are deceptive and unreliable. ² 

I for my part ¹  will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. ²  You will sow your seed in vain because ³  your enemies will eat it. ⁴ 

Your strength will be used up in vain, your land will not give its yield, and the trees of the land ¹  will not produce their fruit.

Do not trust in what you can gain by oppression! ¹  Do not put false confidence in what you can gain by robbery! ²  If wealth increases, do not become attached to it! ³ 

who said by the Holy Spirit through ¹  your servant David our forefather, ²  ‘Why do the nations ³  rage, ⁴  and the peoples plot foolish ⁵  things?

Now David had been thinking, ¹  “In vain I guarded everything that belonged to this man in the desert. I didn’t take anything from him. But he has repaid my good with evil.

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