What you know, ¹  I ²  know also; I am not inferior ³  to you!

For I consider myself not at all inferior to those “super-apostles.” ¹ 

Now after you another kingdom ¹  will arise, one inferior to yours. Then a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule in all the earth.

Now without dispute the inferior is blessed by the superior,

I also have understanding ¹  as well as you; I am not inferior to you. ²  Who does not know such things as these? ³ 

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!

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.

You made him lower than the angels for a little while. You crowned him with glory and honor. ¹ 

Fathers, ¹  do not provoke ²  your children, so they will not become disheartened.

and said to him, “Everyone ¹  serves the good wine first, and then the cheaper ²  wine when the guests ³  are drunk. You have kept the good wine until now!”

but our presentable members do not need this. Instead, God has blended together the body, giving greater honor to the lesser member,

In those days Israel had no king. There was a Levite ¹  living temporarily in the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. He acquired a concubine ²  from Bethlehem ³  in Judah.

The people will treat each other harshly; men will oppose each other; neighbors will fight. ¹  Youths will proudly defy the elderly and riffraff will challenge those who were once respected. ² 

The leading men of the cities send their servants for water. They go to the cisterns, ¹  but they do not find any water there. They return with their containers ²  empty. Disappointed and dismayed, they bury their faces in their hands. ³ 

I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater ¹  than John. ²  Yet the one who is least ³  in the kingdom of God ⁴  is greater than he is.”

However, the Pharisees ¹  and the experts in religious law ²  rejected God’s purpose ³  for themselves, because they had not been baptized ⁴  by John. ⁵ ) ⁶ 

So then, the one who marries ¹  his own virgin does well, but the one who does not, does better. ² 

My aim is to know him, ¹  to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, ²  and to be like him in his death,

Although these false teachers promise ¹  such people ²  freedom, they themselves are enslaved to ³  immorality. ⁴  For whatever a person succumbs to, to that he is enslaved. ⁵ 

The Lord was angry at Amaziah and sent a prophet to him, who said, “Why are you following ¹  these gods ²  that could not deliver their own people from your power?” ³