For we know that the law is spiritual – but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin.

To the married I give this command – not I, but the Lord – a wife should not divorce a husband

Now if Timothy comes, see that he has nothing to fear among you, for he is doing the Lord’s work, as I am too.

Now I appeal to God as my witness, that to spare you I did not come again to Corinth.

For if I make you sad, who would be left to make me glad but the one I caused to be sad?

Now I will most gladly spend and be spent for your lives! If I love you more, am I to be loved less?

But be that as it may, I have not burdened you. Yet because I was a crafty person, I took you in by deceit!

I beg you, brothers and sisters, become like me, because I have become like you. You have done me no wrong!

Listen! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all!

Now, brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed.

I, therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live worthily of the calling with which you have been called,

This mystery is great – but I am actually speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead,

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content in any circumstance.

For we wanted to come to you (I, Paul, in fact tried again and again) but Satan thwarted us.

I wanted to keep him so that he could serve me in your place during my imprisonment for the sake of the gospel.

Yes, brother, let me have some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ.

So I began weeping bitterly because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end!)

But John tried to prevent him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?”