When ¹  the men came to Jesus, ²  they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, ³  ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’” ⁴ 

If he cannot succeed, ¹  he will send a representative ²  while the other is still a long way off and ask for terms of peace. ³ 

Jesus ¹  also told this parable to some who were confident that they were righteous and looked down ²  on everyone else.

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, ¹  and no one can snatch ²  them from my Father’s hand.

(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there used to spend their time ¹  in nothing else than telling ²  or listening to something new.) ³ 

It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything that causes your brother to stumble. ¹ 

And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed ¹  – perhaps of wheat or something else.

Let each one examine ¹  his own work. Then he can take pride ²  in himself and not compare himself with ³  someone else.

One of you must go and get ¹  your brother, while ²  the rest of you remain in prison. ³  In this way your words may be tested to see if ⁴  you are telling the truth. ⁵  If not, then, as surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies!”

and will secretly eat her afterbirth ¹  and her newborn children ²  (since she has nothing else), ³  because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.

He answered her, “While I was talking to Naboth the Jezreelite, I said to him, ‘Sell me your vineyard for silver, or if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard in its place.’ But he said, ‘I will not sell you my vineyard.’” ¹ 

When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, ¹  pick up their bodies to remove the bones from the house, they will say to anyone who is in the inner rooms of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” He will respond, “Be quiet! Don’t invoke the Lord’s name!” ² 

I tell you the solemn truth, ¹  when you were young, you tied your clothes around you ²  and went wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will tie you up ³  and bring you where you do not want to go.”

Or who among you has planted a vineyard and not benefited from it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else benefit from it.

Or who among you ¹  has become engaged to a woman but has not married her? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else marry her.”

For this is what the Lord says, the one who created the sky – he is the true God, ¹  the one who formed the earth and made it; he established it, he did not create it without order, ²  he formed it to be inhabited – “I am the Lord, I have no peer.

So now, listen to this, O one who lives so lavishly, ¹  who lives securely, who says to herself, ²  ‘I am unique! No one can compare to me! ³  I will never have to live as a widow; I will never lose my children.’ ⁴ 

No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate ¹  the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise ²  the other. You cannot serve God and money.” ³ 

Indeed, he who ¹  did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?

So David said to all his servants who were with him in Jerusalem, ¹  “Come on! ²  Let’s escape! ³  Otherwise no one will be delivered from Absalom! Go immediately, or else he will quickly overtake us and bring ⁴  disaster on us and kill the city’s residents with the sword.” ⁵