While ¹  they were staying there many days, Festus ²  explained Paul’s case to the king to get his opinion, ³  saying, “There is a man left here as a prisoner by Felix.

When the local people ¹  saw the creature hanging from Paul’s ²  hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer! Although he has escaped from the sea, Justice herself ³  has not allowed him to live!” ⁴ 

For God, whom I serve in my spirit by preaching the gospel ¹  of his Son, is my witness that ²  I continually remember you

(as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”). ¹  He is our father ²  in the presence of God whom he believed – the God who ³  makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do. ⁴ 

God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew! Do you not know what the scripture says about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?

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 

For the commandments, ¹  “Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet,” ²  (and if there is any other commandment) are summed up in this, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ³ 

But this knowledge is not shared by all. And some, by being accustomed to idols in former times, eat this food as an idol sacrifice, and their conscience, because it is weak, is defiled.

In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them, and he has given us ¹  the message of reconciliation.

For if I have boasted to him about anything concerning you, I have not been embarrassed by you, ¹  but just as everything we said to you was true, ²  so our boasting to Titus about you ³  has proved true as well.

But I am afraid that ¹  just as the serpent ²  deceived Eve by his treachery, ³  your minds may be led astray ⁴  from a sincere and pure ⁵  devotion to Christ.

I said before when I was present the second time and now, though absent, I say again to those who sinned previously and to all the rest, that if I come again, I will not spare anyone, ¹ 

Now we pray to God that you may not do anything wrong, not so that we may appear to have passed the test, ¹  but so that you may do what is right ²  even if we may appear to have failed the test. ³ 

among whom ¹  all of us ²  also ³  formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath ⁴  even as the rest… ⁵ 

My confident hope ¹  is that I will in no way be ashamed ²  but that with complete boldness, even now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether I live or die. ³ 

So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence, ¹ 

I am thankful to God, whom I have served with a clear conscience as my ancestors did, ¹  when I remember you in my prayers as I do constantly night and day. ² 

But Christ ¹  is faithful as a son over God’s ²  house. We are of his house, ³  if in fact we hold firmly ⁴  to our confidence and the hope we take pride in. ⁵ 

For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my anger, ‘They will never enter my rest!’” ¹  And yet God’s works ²  were accomplished from the foundation of the world.

So in fact children ¹  were fathered by one man – and this one as good as dead – like the number of stars in the sky and like the innumerable grains of sand ²  on the seashore. ³