as the scripture says, "I have made you father of many nations." So the promise is good in the sight of God, in whom Abraham believed---the God who brings the dead to life and whose command brings into being what did not exist.

I am acting like a fool---but you have made me do it. You are the ones who ought to show your approval of me. For even if I am nothing, I am in no way inferior to those very special "apostles" of yours.

Yet I do proclaim a message of wisdom to those who are spiritually mature. But it is not the wisdom that belongs to this world or to the powers that rule this world---powers that are losing their power.

Just as the LORD took delight in making you prosper and in making you increase in number, so he will take delight in destroying you and in bringing ruin on you. You will be uprooted from the land that you are about to occupy.

He does not take the side of rulers nor favor the rich over the poor, for he created everyone.

We may suddenly die at night. God strikes us down and we perish; he kills the mighty with no effort at all.

He does not need an investigation to remove leaders and replace them with others.

The wicked will have to suffer, but those who trust in the LORD are protected by his constant love.

I once knew someone wicked who was a tyrant; he towered over everyone like a cedar of Lebanon;

but later I passed by, and he wasn't there; I looked for him, but couldn't find him.

A day is coming when human pride will be ended and human arrogance destroyed. Then the LORD alone will be exalted.

Human pride will be ended, and human arrogance will be destroyed. Idols will completely disappear, and the LORD alone will be exalted on that day.

The nations advance like rushing waves, but God reprimands them and they retreat, driven away like dust on a mountainside, like straw in a whirlwind.

At evening they cause terror, but by morning they are gone. That is the fate of everyone who plunders our land.

An angel of the LORD went to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 soldiers. At dawn the next day there they lay, all dead!

and will disappear from the earth.

While you were looking at it, a great stone broke loose from a cliff without anyone touching it, struck the iron and clay feet of the statue, and shattered them.

At once the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold crumbled and became like the dust on a threshing place in summer. The wind carried it all away, leaving not a trace. But the stone grew to be a mountain that covered the whole earth.

At the time of those rulers the God of heaven will establish a kingdom that will never end. It will never be conquered, but will completely destroy all those empires and then last forever.

You saw how a stone broke loose from a cliff without anyone touching it and how it struck the statue made of iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. The great God is telling Your Majesty what will happen in the future. I have told you exactly what you dreamed, and have given you its true meaning."

And in one hour she has lost all this wealth!" All the ships' captains and passengers, the sailors and all others who earn their living on the sea, stood a long way off,