Don't be surprised when you see that the government oppresses the poor and denies them justice and their rights. Every official is protected by someone higher, and both are protected by still higher officials.

Do not be surprised because I tell you that you must all be born again.

When Peter saw the people, he said to them, "Fellow Israelites, why are you surprised at this, and why do you stare at us? Do you think that it was by means of our own power or godliness that we made this man walk?

"Why are you amazed?" the angel asked me. "I will tell you the secret meaning of the woman and of the beast that carries her, the beast with seven heads and ten horns.

Everyone will hate you because of me. But whoever holds out to the end will be saved.

"Then you will be arrested and handed over to be punished and be put to death. Everyone will hate you because of me.

Everyone will hate you because of me. But whoever holds out to the end will be saved.

"Happy are you when people hate you, reject you, insult you, and say that you are evil, all because of the Son of Man!

Everyone will hate you because of me.

The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I keep telling it that its ways are bad.

"If the world hates you, just remember that it has hated me first.

If you belonged to the world, then the world would love you as its own. But I chose you from this world, and you do not belong to it; that is why the world hates you.

You will be expelled from the synagogues, and the time will come when those who kill you will think that by doing this they are serving God.

I have told you this so that you will have peace by being united to me. The world will make you suffer. But be brave! I have defeated the world!"

I gave them your message, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

And so people become enemies of God when they are controlled by their human nature; for they do not obey God's law, and in fact they cannot obey it.

Everyone who wants to live a godly life in union with Christ Jesus will be persecuted;

Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.