The hired hand, ¹  who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons ²  the sheep and runs away. ³  So the wolf attacks ⁴  the sheep and scatters them.

“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, ¹  so that they would not see with their eyes and understand with their heart, ²  and turn to me, ³  and I would heal them.” ⁴ 

When Herod ¹  had searched ²  for him and did not find him, he questioned ³  the guards and commanded that they be led away to execution. ⁴  Then ⁵  Herod ⁶  went down from Judea to Caesarea ⁷  and stayed there.

For the people who live in Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize ¹  him, ²  and they fulfilled the sayings ³  of the prophets that are read every Sabbath by condemning ⁴  him. ⁵ 

They have been informed about you – that you teach all the Jews now living ¹  among the Gentiles to abandon ²  Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children ³  or live ⁴  according to our customs.

Without being weak in faith, he considered ¹  his own body as dead ²  (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

and do not present your members to sin as instruments ¹  to be used for unrighteousness, ²  but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments ³  to be used for righteousness.

even before they were born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose in election ¹  would stand, not by works but by ²  his calling) ³  –

But just as it is written, “Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined, ¹  are the things God has prepared for those who love him.” ² 

The unbeliever ¹  does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

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 

It is written in the law: “By people with strange tongues and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people, yet not even in this way will they listen to me,” ¹  says the Lord.

Nor do we boast beyond certain limits ¹  in the work ²  done by others, but we hope ³  that as your faith continues to grow, our work may be greatly expanded ⁴  among you according to our limits, ⁵ 

But from those who were influential ¹  (whatever they were makes no difference to me; God shows no favoritism between people ² ) – those influential leaders ³  added ⁴  nothing to my message. ⁵ 

Masters, ¹  treat your slaves ²  the same way, ³  giving up the use of threats, ⁴  because you know that both you and they have the same master in heaven, ⁵  and there is no favoritism with him.

by holding on to ¹  the word of life so that on the day of Christ I will have a reason to boast that I did not run in vain nor labor in vain.

not to be easily ¹  shaken from your composure or disturbed by any kind of spirit or message or letter allegedly from us, ²  to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.

and we did not eat anyone’s food without paying. ¹  Instead, in toil and drudgery we worked ²  night and day in order not to burden any of you.

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 

So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming high priest, but the one who glorified him was God, ¹  who said to him, “You are my Son! Today I have fathered you,” ²