Which of the prophets did your ancestors ¹  not persecute? ²  They ³  killed those who foretold long ago the coming of the Righteous One, ⁴  whose betrayers and murderers you have now become! ⁵ 

not by all the people, but by us, the witnesses God had already chosen, ¹  who ate and drank ²  with him after he rose from the dead.

And now I entrust ¹  you to God and to the message ²  of his grace. This message ³  is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

a promise ¹  that our twelve tribes hope to attain as they earnestly serve God ²  night and day. Concerning this hope the Jews are accusing me, ³  Your Majesty! ⁴ 

And that is what I did in Jerusalem: Not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons by the authority I received ¹  from the chief priests, but I also cast my vote ²  against them when they were sentenced to death. ³ 

Do you not know that if you present yourselves ¹  as obedient slaves, ²  you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? ³ 

to another performance of miracles, to another prophecy, and to another discernment of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.

Through the evidence ¹  of this service ²  they will glorify God because of your obedience to your confession in the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your sharing ³  with them and with everyone.

For we were not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach as far as you, because we were the first to reach as far as you with the gospel about Christ. ¹ 

I have become a fool. You yourselves forced me to do it, for I should have been commended by you. For I lack nothing in comparison ¹  to those “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing.

Now this matter arose ¹  because of the false brothers with false pretenses ²  who slipped in unnoticed to spy on ³  our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, to make us slaves. ⁴ 

– since the eyes of your ¹  heart have been enlightened ²  – so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, ³  what is the wealth of his glorious ⁴  inheritance in the saints,

And as you Philippians know, at the beginning of my gospel ministry, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in this matter of giving and receiving except you alone.

Then we who are alive, who are left, ¹  will be suddenly caught up ²  together ³  with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

For we had good news proclaimed to us just as they did. But the message they heard did them no good, since they did not join in ¹  with those who heard it in faith. ² 

These all died in faith without receiving the things promised, ¹  but they saw them in the distance and welcomed them and acknowledged that they were strangers and foreigners ²  on the earth.

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters! ¹  Did not God choose the poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may proclaim the virtues ¹  of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

¹ Because Christ also suffered ²  once for sins, the just for the unjust, ³  to bring you to God, by being put to death in the flesh but ⁴  by being made alive in the spirit. ⁵ 

In the same way, you who are younger, ¹  be subject to the elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. ²