What then was your blessedness? for I bear you witness that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.

for I bear him witness, that he is very zealous for you, and for those in Laodicea, and Hierapolis.

That they

for they will excommunicate you: yea, the time is coming, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he offers an acceptable service to God.

And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said to him, Thou seest, brother, how many myriads there are of the believing Jews, and they are all zealous for the law.

---I am indeed a Jew, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, but educated in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, accurately instructed in the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, as ye all are this day.

I indeed once thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus the Nazarene:

and I made a proficiency in Judaism above many of the same age with me in my own nation, being excessively zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

They are zealous for you, but not as they ought: for they would exclude us, that ye may be zealous for them:

as to zeal persecuting the church, as to the righteousness of the law blameless: but those things,

But not

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

but Israel, who followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness: why?

among whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, doth not shine unto them:

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

General references

And he said, all these have I kept from my youth.