For I bear witness that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing,

What then was your blessing? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have torn out your own eyes and given them to me!

For I bear him witness that he has much zeal for you, and those in Laodicea, and those in Hierapolis.

And he said to him, Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord. And he caused him to sit in his chariot.

They will excommunicate you; but a time is coming when everyone who kills you will think that he is offering God a service.

And hearing this, they were glorifying the Lord, saying to him, "You see, brother, how many myriads of Jews there are having believed, and they are all zealous for the law;

crying out, "Men, Israelites, help! This is the man who is teaching all [people] everywhere against the people and the Law and this place; and furthermore he has brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place."

"I am indeed a Jew, having been born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but having been brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, having been educated according to the exactness of the law of our forefathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today.

Now they were listening to him until this statement, and they lifted their voice saying, "Take away such a [man] from the earth, for it is not fitting [for] him to live!"

Therefore I thought in myself that it was necessary to do many hostile things against the name of Jesus the Nazarene;

which also I did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were being put to death, I cast my vote against them.

And I was advancing in Judaism above many my own age, being far more zealous for the traditions of my forefathers.

They are zealous about you in the wrong way; but they wish to shut you out, so that you will be zealous about them.

But it is good to be zealous in a good thing always, and not only when I am present with you.

with respect to zeal, persecuting the church; with respect to righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

For they, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not attain to the law of righteousness.

Why? Because [they did] not [seek it] by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled the stone of stumbling.

Will not all the workers of iniquity know, who eat up my people as they would eat bread? They have not called upon the Lord.

[This translation omits this verse.]

In that day God shall bring [His] holy and great and strong sword upon the dragon, even the serpent that flees, upon the dragon, the crooked serpent; He shall destroy the dragon.

among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so that the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine on them.

Because it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts to give [the] light of the knowledge of the glory of God in [the] face of Jesus Christ.

And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all perception,