I also thought to myself, “It is ¹  for the sake of people, ²  so God can clearly ³  show ⁴  them that they are like animals.

For the sake of my reputation ¹  I hold back my anger; for the sake of my prestige ²  I restrain myself from destroying you. ³ 

No, ¹  a wind too strong for that will come at my bidding. Yes, even now I, myself, am calling down judgment on them.’ ² 

He says, “I will build myself a large palace with spacious upper rooms.” He cuts windows in its walls, panels it ¹  with cedar, and paints its rooms red. ² 

Have you not seen a false vision and announced a lying omen when you say, “the Lord declares,” although I myself never spoke?

“‘Therefore, this is what the sovereign Lord says to them: Look, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.

All the people of the land will bury them, and it will be a memorial ¹  for them on the day I magnify myself, declares the sovereign Lord.

It was like the vision I saw when he ¹  came to destroy the city, and the vision I saw by the Kebar River. I threw myself face down.

I ate no choice food; no meat or wine came to my lips, ¹  nor did I anoint myself with oil ²  until the end of those three weeks.

Jesus replied, ¹  “If I glorify myself, my glory is worthless. ²  The one who glorifies me is my Father, about whom you people ³  say, ‘He is our God.’

And when the blood of your witness ¹  Stephen was shed, ²  I myself was standing nearby, approving, ³  and guarding the cloaks ⁴  of those who were killing him.’ ⁵ 

Of course, ¹  I myself was convinced ²  that it was necessary to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus the Nazarene.

For I could wish ¹  that I myself were accursed – cut off from Christ – for the sake of my people, ²  my fellow countrymen, ³ 

But what was the divine response ¹  to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand people ²  who have not bent the knee to Baal.” ³ 

So for me, it is a minor matter that I am judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.

For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not acquitted because of this. The one who judges me is the Lord.

For since I am free from all I can make myself a slave to all, in order to gain even more people. ¹ 

Instead I subdue my body and make it my slave, so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified.

Or did I commit a sin by humbling myself ¹  so that you could be exalted, because I proclaimed ²  the gospel of God to you free of charge?

For how ¹  were you treated worse than the other churches, except that I myself was not a burden to you? Forgive me this injustice!