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

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

for I bear him witness that he has a great zeal for you, and those who are in Laodicea, and those in Hierapolis.

Then he said, Come with me, and see my zeal for Jehovah. So they made him ride in his chariot.

They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.

And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord. And they said to him, You see, brother, how many countless Jews there are who believe, and they also are all zealous for the Law;

crying out, Men of Israel, help! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against the people, the Law, and this place; and furthermore he also brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.

I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers' Law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today.

And they listened to him until this word, and then they raised their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live!

Indeed, I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

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

And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

They zealously pursue you, but not well; yes, they want to exclude you, that you may be zealous for them.

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

concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the Law, blameless.

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

but Israel, pursuing the Law of righteousness, has not arrived at the Law of righteousness.

Why? Because it was not by faith, but as out of works of the Law. For they stumbled at the stumbling stone.

Have all the workers of iniquity not known, eating up My people as they eat bread? They have not called upon Jehovah.

Also for the soul to be without knowledge is not good, and he who hurries with his feet sins.

In that day Jehovah with His great and fierce and strong sword shall punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent; Leviathan, that twisted serpent; and He shall kill the dragon in the sea.

whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, so that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine on them.

For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone 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 still more and more in full true knowledge and all discernment,