What are we then to say to facts like these? If God is for us, who can be against us?

As the Scripture says: "For your sake we are being put to death the livelong day; we are treated like sheep to be slaughtered."

On the contrary, friend, who are you anyway that you would answer back to God? Can the clay that is molded ask the man who molds it, "Why did you make me like this?"

As Isaiah again has foretold, "Unless the Lord of hosts had left us some descendants, we would have fared as Sodom did and would have been like Gomorrah."

However, I should like for everyone to be just as I am myself, yet each of us has his own special gift from God, one for one way, another for another.

To the Jews I have become like a Jew for the winning of Jews; to men under the law, like one under the law, though I am not under the law myself, to win the men under the law;

to men who have no written law, like one without any law, though I am not without God's law but specially under Christ's law, to win the men who have no written law.

So that is the way I run, with no uncertainty as to winning. That is the way I box, not like one that punches the air.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I laid aside my childish ways.

I would like for all of you to speak in ecstasy, but I would rather that you prophesy. The man who speaks with real prophetic insight renders greater service than the man who speaks in ecstasy, unless the latter explains it, so the congregation may receive an uplift.

Even inanimate things, like the flute or the harp, may give out sounds, but if there is no difference in the notes, how can the tune that is played on the flute or the harp be told?

It is just like this with the resurrection of the dead.

Now those who are made of the dust are just like him who was first made of dust, and those who are heavenly are like Him who is from heaven,

Be always on your guard; stand firm in your faith; keep on acting like men; continue to grow in strength;

I beg you to put yourselves under leaders like these, and under anyone who cooperates with you, and labors hard.

To a man like that, this censure by the majority has been sufficient punishment,

Now who is qualified for such a task? I am, for I am not a peddler of God's message, like the most of them, but like a man of sincerity, like a man that is sent from God and living in His presence, in union with Christ I speak His message.

Am I beginning to recommend myself again? I do not, like some people, do I, need letters of recommendation to you or from you?

And all of us, with faces uncovered, because we continue to reflect like mirrors the splendor of the Lord, are being transformed into likeness to Him, from one degree of splendor to another, since it comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

For in this one I am sighing, because I long to put on, like a robe, my heavenly body, my future home,

Now finish doing it too, so that your readiness to finish it may be just like your readiness to start it, in accordance with what you have.

Let me say again that no one must think that I am a fool, but if you do, please treat me like a fool and let me do a little boasting too, as other fools do.

I am ashamed to say that I was, as it were, so weak in the matter. And yet in whatever respect anyone else is daring to boast -- I am talking like a fool -- I too will dare to boast.

Are they ministers of Christ? So am I. I am talking like a man that has gone crazy -- as such I am superior! -- serving Him with labors greater by far, with far more imprisonments, with floggings vastly worse, and often at the point of death.

But when I saw that they were not living up to the truth of the good news, I said to Cephas, and that before them all, "If you are living like a heathen and not like a Jew, although you are a Jew yourself, why do you try to make the heathen live like Jews?"

Now if, in our efforts to come into right standing with God through union with Christ, we have proved ourselves to be sinners like the heathen themselves, does that make Christ a party to our sin? Of course not.

Now we, brothers, like Isaac, are children born to fulfill the promise.

envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I now warn you, as I have done before, that those who practice such things shall not be heirs of the kingdom of God.

so that we may not be babies any longer, or like sailors tossed about and driven around by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men through their cunning in inventing new methods of error.

For at one time you were darkness itself, but now in union with the Lord you are light itself. You must live like children of light,

that He might present the church to Himself as a splendid bride without a blot or wrinkle or anything like it, but to be consecrated and faultless.

but He laid it aside as He took on the nature of a slave and became like other men.

For I have no one else with a heart like his who would take such genuine interest in you,

But you know his tested character, how like a son in fellowship with his father he has toiled with me like a slave in preaching the good news.

So give him a hearty Christian welcome and hold in honor men like him,

He will so change the outward appearance of our lowly bodies that they will be like His glorious body, by the exertion of the power He has to subject everything to Himself.

I have received your payment in full, and more too. I am amply supplied after getting the things you sent by Epaphroditus; they are like sweet incense, the kind of sacrifice that God accepts and approves.

Instead we were little children among you; we were like a mother nursing her children.

for you yourselves know perfectly well that the day of the Lord is coming like a thief in the night.

When people say, "Such peace and security!" then suddenly destruction falls upon them, like birth pains upon a woman who is about to become a mother, but they shall not escape, no, not at all.

But you, brothers, are not in darkness, so that that day, like a thief, should take you by surprise;

May the Lord guide you into a realization of God's love for you and into a patient endurance like Christ's.

Never reprove an older man, but always appeal to him as a father. Treat younger men like brothers,

older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, with perfect purity.

Take your share of hardships like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

and their message will spread like a cancer; men like Hymenaeus and Philetus,

I would have liked to keep him with me, to wait on me in your stead while I wear these chains for the good news,

Yes, brother, I would like some return myself from you in the Lord's work. Through Christ refresh my heart.

They will perish, but you always remain; they all will grow old like a coat,

And you will fold them up just like a robe, and they will be changed like the changing of one's coat, but you are the same, and your years will never cease."

Therefore He had to be made like His brothers, so that He could be a sympathetic High Priest, as well as a faithful one, in things relating to God, in order to atone for the people's sins.

with no father, no mother, no ancestry; no beginning to his days, no end to his life, but, like the Son of God, as priest continues on and on with no successor.

and yet they officiate in a sanctuary that is a mere copy and shadow of the heavenly one, as Moses, when he was about to make the tent of worship, was warned, for, said He, "See to it that you make it all just like the pattern shown you on the mountain."

Continue to look after one another, that no one fails to gain God's spiritual blessing; or some evil like a bitter root may spring up and trouble you, and many of you be contaminated by it --

some immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

But he must ask in faith, without a doubt, for the man who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is whirled and swayed by the wind.

and the rich brother rejoice in his being on a level with the poor, because the rich will fade away like the flower of the grass.

Because if anyone merely listens to the message without obeying it, he is like a man who looks in a mirror at his own face,

You must continue talking and acting like people who are to be judged by the law that treats them as free.

Out of the same mouth flow blessing and cursing! It ought not to be like this, my brothers.

your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will testify against you and devour your flesh like fire. You have stored up these things for the last days.

Elijah was a man with feelings just like ours, and yet he earnestly prayed for it not to rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.

but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without a blemish or a blot,

For "All human life is just like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass dries up; the flowers drop off.

and like new-born babies thirst for pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up to final salvation,

Live like free men, only do not make your freedom a pretext for doing evil, but live like slaves of God.

for once you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of Your souls.

For the time that is past is enough for you to have accomplished what the heathen like to do, leading lives that are steeped in sensuality, lustful desires, drunkenness, carousing, revelry, dissipation, and idolatry that leads to lawlessness,

Be calm and alert. Your opponent the devil is always prowling about like a roaring lion, trying to devour you.

For when He received such honor and glory from God the Father, when from the majestic glory there was borne to Him a voice like this, "This is my Son, my Beloved, in whom I take delight,"

These men, like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct created to be caught and killed, abuse the things that they do not understand, and so by their corruption they will be destroyed, suffering wrong as punishment for their wrongdoing.

But you must avoid forgetting this one fact, dearly beloved, that with the Lord a single day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a single day.

The day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a roar, the heavenly bodies will be destroyed by being burned up, and the earth with all its works will melt away.

Dearly beloved, we are now God's children, but what we are going to be has not been unveiled. We know that if it is unveiled, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.

We must not be like Cain who belonged to the evil one and butchered his brother. And why did he butcher him? Because his own actions were wicked and his brother's upright.

For many impostors have gone out into the world, men who do not own that Jesus Christ continues to come in human form. A person like this is the impostor and the Antichrist.

I have written briefly to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to be first among them, refuses to listen to me.

just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns which like them indulged in grossest immorality and unnatural vice, stand as a perpetual warning, in suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

But these persons abuse everything they do not understand, and they are going to be destroyed by the very things they know by instinct, like the irrational animals.

Alas for them, because they have trod the road that Cain did; for gain they have rushed into Balaam's error and have perished in rebellion like that of Korah!

On the Lord's day I was in the Spirit's power, and I heard a voice like a trumpet behind me say:

His head and hair were as white as white wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like coals of fire;

His feet were like bronze refined to white heat in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters.

In His right hand He was holding seven stars, and a sharp, double-edged sword was coming out of His mouth, and His face was shining like the sun at midday.

So when I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. But He laid His right hand upon me and said: "Do not be afraid any more. I am the First and the Last;

"To the messenger of the church in Thyatira write: 'The Son of God, whose eyes are like coals of fire, and whose feet are like bronze refined to white heat, speaks as follows:

he will govern them with a scepter of iron and shatter them like earthen jars -- just such authority as I have received from my Father --

So remember what you have received and heard, and continue to obey it, and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will never know the hour when I come upon you.

After this I had another vision: A door was standing open in heaven, and the first voice, like a trumpet, that I had heard speaking with me, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place."

The One who was seated on it looked like jasper or sardius, and around the throne there was a rainbow that looked like an emerald.

Also in front of the throne there was something like a sea of glass as clear as crystal. Around the throne, at the middle of each side were four living creatures dotted with eyes in front and behind,

The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man's, and the fourth was like an eagle flying.

And when the Lamb broke the first of the seven seals, I looked and heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, "Come!"

When He broke the sixth seal, I looked, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun turned black as sackcloth, and the full moon became like blood,

The sky was swept away just like a scroll that is rolled up; and every mountain and island was moved out of its place.

Then the third angel blew his trumpet, and there fell from the sky a great star blazing like a torch, and it fell upon one-third of the rivers and the springs of water.

and he opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke like the smoke of a huge furnace puffed up out of the pit, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit.

Out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, but the power that was given to them was like the power of earthly scorpions.

They were not permitted to kill them, but only to torture them for five months, and the torture they inflicted was like the torture of a scorpion when it stings a man.

The locusts look like horses armed for battle; on their heads were what appeared to be crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces;