The best of them is like a thorn; the most godly among them are more dangerous than a row of thorn bushes. ¹  The day you try to avoid by posting watchmen – your appointed time of punishment – is on the way, ²  and then you will experience confusion. ³ 

If ¹  your hand or your foot causes you to sin, ²  cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have ³  two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.

So give orders to secure the tomb until the third day. Otherwise his disciples may come and steal his body ¹  and say to the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.”

The queen of the South ¹  will rise up at the judgment ²  with the people ³  of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon – and now, ⁴  something greater ⁵  than Solomon is here!

So do not let them persuade you to do this, ¹  because more than forty of them ²  are lying in ambush ³  for him. They ⁴  have bound themselves with an oath ⁵  not to eat or drink anything ⁶  until they have killed him, and now they are ready, waiting for you to agree to their request.” ⁷ 

For by the grace given to me I say to every one of you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think with sober discernment, as God has distributed to each of you ¹  a measure of faith. ² 

But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing these things so that something will be done for me. ¹  In fact, it would be better for me to die than – no one will deprive me of my reason for boasting! ² 

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 

More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things – indeed, I regard them as dung! ¹  – that I may gain Christ,

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to the point of dividing soul from spirit, and joints from marrow; it is able to judge the desires and thoughts of the heart.

Such trials show the proven character of your faith, ¹  which is much more valuable than gold – gold that is tested by fire, even though it is passing away ²  – and will bring praise ³  and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁴ 

For if after they have escaped the filthy things ¹  of the world through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, ²  they ³  again get entangled in them and succumb to them, ⁴  their last state has become worse for them than their first.

So they approached the king and said to him, ¹  “Did you not issue an edict to the effect that for the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or human other than to you, O king, would be thrown into a den of lions?” The king replied, “That is correct, ²  according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be changed.”