What I am saying with this boastful confidence ¹  I do not say the way the Lord would. ²  Instead it is, as it were, foolishness.

And I know that his commandment is eternal life. ¹  Thus the things I say, I say just as the Father has told me.” ² 

Am I saying these things only on the basis of common sense, ¹  or does the law not say this as well?

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you,

Sober up as you should, and stop sinning! For some have no knowledge of God – I say this to your shame!

For this reason I speak to them in parables: Although they see they do not see, and although they hear they do not hear nor do they understand.

If anyone wants to do God’s will, ¹  he will know about my teaching, whether it is from God or whether I speak from my own authority. ² 

So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus replied, ¹  “What I have told you from the beginning.

I am telling you the things I have seen while with the ¹  Father; ²  as for you, ³  practice the things you have heard from the ⁴  Father!”

But now I am coming to you, and I am saying these things in the world, so they may experience ¹  my joy completed ²  in themselves.

Or do you not know, brothers and sisters ¹  (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person ²  as long as he lives?

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

Are they servants of Christ? (I am talking like I am out of my mind!) I am even more so: with much greater labors, with far more imprisonments, with more severe beatings, facing death many times.

I have many things to say and to judge ¹  about you, but the Father ²  who sent me is truthful, ³  and the things I have heard from him I speak to the world.” ⁴ 

Then Jesus said, ¹  “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, ²  and I do nothing on my own initiative, ³  but I speak just what the Father taught me. ⁴ 

For the king knows about these things, and I am speaking freely ¹  to him, ²  because I cannot believe ³  that any of these things has escaped his notice, ⁴  for this was not done in a corner. ⁵ 

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? ¹  The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, ²  but the Father residing in me performs ³  his miraculous deeds. ⁴