Now Jehu came out to the servants of his master, and one said to him, “Is all well? Why did this mad fellow come to you?” And he said to them, “You know very well the man and his talk.”

The days of punishment have come,
The days of retribution have come;

Let Israel know this!

The prophet is a fool,
The inspired man is demented,
Because of the grossness of your iniquity,
And because your hostility is so great.

And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What would this idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

While Paul was saying this in his defense, Festus *said in a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind! Your great learning is driving you mad.”

Are wise

You are already filled, you have already become rich, you have become kings without us; and indeed, I wish that you had become kings so that we also might reign with you.

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

“How can you say, ‘We are wise,
And the law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
Has made it into a lie.

We are weak

I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,

For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech contemptible.”

Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me, and who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you.

But ye

I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.

But we

He who despises his neighbor lacks sense,
But a man of understanding keeps silent.

He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

“The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.”

And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt:

So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

General references

I have become a laughingstock to all my people,
Their mocking song all the day.

I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,

I speak as to wise men; you judge what I say.

So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.