My confident hope ¹  is that I will in no way be ashamed ²  but that with complete boldness, even now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether I live or die. ³ 

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, ¹  and for those in Laodicea, and for those who have not met me face to face. ² 

because they hinder us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they constantly fill up their measure of sins, ¹  but wrath ²  has come upon them completely. ³ 

For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love you have demonstrated for his name, in having served and continuing to serve the saints.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that town ¹  and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.”

For what credit is it if you sin and are mistreated and endure it? But if you do good and suffer and so endure, this finds favor with God. ¹ 

Everyone who has been fathered ¹  by God does not practice sin, ²  because ³  God’s ⁴  seed ⁵  resides in him, and thus ⁶  he is not able to sin, because he has been fathered by God.

And the person who keeps his commandments resides ¹  in God, ²  and God ³  in him. Now by this ⁴  we know that God ⁵  resides in us: by the Spirit he has given us.

I have written these things ¹  to you who believe ²  in the name of the Son of God so that ³  you may know that you have eternal life.

We know that everyone fathered ¹  by God does not sin, but God ²  protects ³  the one he has fathered, and the evil one cannot touch him.

(Now this is love: that we walk ¹  according to his commandments.) This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning; thus ²  you should walk in it. ³ 

He must purify himself ¹  with water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third day and the seventh day, then he will not be clean.

They will fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, for the man who made the accusation ¹  ruined the reputation ²  of an Israelite virgin. She will then become his wife and he may never divorce her as long as he lives.

But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, then she ¹  must go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel; he is unwilling to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to me!”

When such a person ¹  hears the words of this oath he secretly ²  blesses himself ³  and says, “I will have peace though I continue to walk with a stubborn spirit.” ⁴  This will destroy ⁵  the watered ground with the parched. ⁶ 

The Israelites are unable to stand before their enemies; they retreat because they have become subject to annihilation. ¹  I will no longer be with you, ²  unless you destroy what has contaminated you. ³ 

“As you continue on from there, you will come to the tall tree of Tabor. At that point three men who are going up to God at Bethel ¹  will meet you. One of them will be carrying three young goats, one of them will be carrying three round loaves of bread, and one of them will be carrying a container of wine.

Then David approached the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to go with him, ¹  those whom they had left at the Wadi Besor. They went out to meet David and the people who were with him. When David approached the people, he asked how they were doing.

She replied, “In that case, ¹  let the king invoke the name of ²  the Lord your God so that the avenger of blood may not kill! Then they will not destroy my son!” He replied, “As surely as the Lord lives, not a single hair of your son’s head ³  will fall to the ground.”

I am presently eighty years old. Am I able to discern good and bad? Can I ¹  taste what I eat and drink? Am I still able to hear the voices of male and female singers? Why should I ²  continue to be a burden to my lord the king?