"Yet my people and I cannot really give you anything, because everything is a gift from you, and we have only given back what is yours already.

O LORD, our God, we have brought together all this wealth to build a temple to honor your holy name, but it all came from you and all belongs to you.

(SEE 22:1)

Does your doing right benefit God, or does your being good help him at all?

If you sin, that does no harm to God. If you do wrong many times, does that affect him?

Do you help God by being so righteous? There is nothing God needs from you.

I say to the LORD, "You are my Lord; all the good things I have come from you."

How excellent are the LORD's faithful people! My greatest pleasure is to be with them.

May their path be dark and slippery while the angel of the LORD strikes them down!

Without any reason they laid a trap for me and dug a deep hole to catch me.

You may think everything you do is right, but the LORD judges your motives.

Ask the LORD to bless your plans, and you will be successful in carrying them out.

I said, "There is no hope for me! I am doomed because every word that passes my lips is sinful, and I live among a people whose every word is sinful. And yet, with my own eyes I have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

All of us have been sinful; even our best actions are filthy through and through. Because of our sins we are like leaves that wither and are blown away by the wind.

As for this useless servant---throw him outside in the darkness; there he will cry and gnash his teeth.'

The righteous will then answer him, 'When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink?

When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?'

All have turned away from God; they have all gone wrong; no one does what is right, not even one.

Who has ever given him anything, so that he had to pay it back?"

I have no right to boast just because I preach the gospel. After all, I am under orders to do so. And how terrible it would be for me if I did not preach the gospel!

If I did my work as a matter of free choice, then I could expect to be paid; but I do it as a matter of duty, because God has entrusted me with this task.

For I am the least of all the apostles---I do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted God's church.

But by God's grace I am what I am, and the grace that he gave me was not without effect. On the contrary, I have worked harder than any of the other apostles, although it was not really my own doing, but God's grace working with me.

Not only those things; I reckon everything as complete loss for the sake of what is so much more valuable, the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have thrown everything away; I consider it all as mere garbage, so that I may gain Christ

and be completely united with him. I no longer have a righteousness of my own, the kind that is gained by obeying the Law. I now have the righteousness that is given through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is based on faith.

At one time he was of no use to you, but now he is useful both to you and to me.

In the same way you younger people must submit yourselves to your elders. And all of you must put on the apron of humility, to serve one another; for the scripture says, "God resists the proud, but shows favor to the humble."

Humble yourselves, then, under God's mighty hand, so that he will lift you up in his own good time.