Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort provided by love, any fellowship in the Spirit, any affection or mercy,

For you put up with it if someone makes slaves of you, if someone exploits you, if someone takes advantage of you, if someone behaves arrogantly toward you, if someone strikes you in the face.

If someone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.

If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone’s sins, they are retained.”

If someone thinks he knows something, he does not yet know to the degree that he needs to know.

Am I saying that idols or food sacrificed to them amount to anything?

For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill.

Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone in good spirits? He should sing praises.

If anyone has ears to hear, he had better listen!”

Some stood up and gave this false testimony against him:

Then Jesus said, “A man had two sons.

But we must run aground on some island.”

it is not from works, so that no one can boast.

Some have strayed from these and turned away to empty discussion.

For some have already wandered away to follow Satan.

If anyone has an ear, he had better listen!

while others were saying that Elijah had appeared, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago had risen.

He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected people.

For you are bringing some surprising things to our ears, so we want to know what they mean.”