The king then inquired of the wise men who were discerners of the times – for it was the royal custom to confer with all those who were proficient in laws and legalities. ¹ 

For ²  Solomon. O God, grant the king the ability to make just decisions! ³  Grant the king’s son ⁴  the ability to make fair decisions! ⁵ 

You must be truthful, honest and upright when you take an oath saying, ‘As surely as the Lord lives!’ ¹  If you do, ²  the nations will pray to be as blessed by him as you are and will make him the object of their boasting.” ³ 

I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. ¹  They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ²  They do not know what their God requires of them. ³ 

“So the time will certainly come ¹  when I will punish the idols of Babylon. Her whole land will be put to shame. All her mortally wounded will collapse in her midst. ² 

“Are you willing to pronounce judgment? ¹  Are you willing to pronounce judgment, son of man? Then confront them with the abominable practices of their fathers,

I gave them my statutes ¹  and revealed my regulations to them. The one ²  who carries ³  them out will live by them! ⁴ 

A total ruin I will make it! ¹  It will come to an end when the one arrives to whom I have assigned judgment.’ ² 

Let the nations be roused and let them go up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit in judgment on all the surrounding nations.

Be silent before the Lord God, ¹  for the Lord’s day of judgment ²  is almost here. ³  The Lord has prepared a sacrificial meal; ⁴  he has ritually purified ⁵  his guests.

In humiliation ¹  justice was taken from him. ²  Who can describe his posterity? ³  For his life was taken away ⁴  from the earth.” ⁵ 

Now receive the one who is weak in the faith, and do not have disputes over differing opinions. ¹ 

The one who eats everything must not despise the one who does not, and the one who abstains must not judge the one who eats everything, for God has accepted him.

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.

So if you have ordinary lawsuits, do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church? ¹ 

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, ¹  because you know that we will be judged more strictly. ² 

And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their ¹  condemnation pronounced long ago ²  is not sitting idly by; ³  their ⁴  destruction is not asleep.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief; when it comes, ¹  the heavens will disappear ²  with a horrific noise, ³  and the celestial bodies ⁴  will melt away ⁵  in a blaze, ⁶  and the earth and every deed done on it ⁷  will be laid bare. ⁸ 

And he will stand before Eleazar the priest, who ¹  will seek counsel ²  for him before the Lord by the decision of the Urim. ³  At his command ⁴  they will go out, and at his command they will come in, he and all the Israelites with him, the whole community.”

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