“Men, why are you doing these things? We too are men, with human natures ¹  just like you! We are proclaiming the good news to you, so that you should turn ²  from these worthless ³  things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, ⁴  the sea, and everything that is in them.

(I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) ¹  For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

For our reason for confidence ¹  is this: the testimony of our conscience, that with pure motives ²  and sincerity which are from God ³  – not by human wisdom ⁴  but by the grace of God – we conducted ourselves in the world, and all the more ⁵  toward you.

Therefore when I was planning to do this, I did not do so without thinking about what I was doing, did I? ¹  Or do I make my plans ²  according to mere human standards ³  so that I would be saying ⁴  both “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time?

And so ¹  we too constantly thank God that when you received God’s message that you heard from us, ²  you accepted it not as a human message, ³  but as it truly is, God’s message, which is at work among you who believe.

So they approached the king and said to him, ¹  “Did you not issue an edict to the effect that for the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or human other than to you, O king, would be thrown into a den of lions?” The king replied, “That is correct, ²  according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be changed.”