It is better to focus on what you can see than to meander after your self-interest; this also is pointless and a chasing after wind.

It's better to attend a funeral than to attend a banquet, for everyone dies eventually, and the living will take this to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter, because the heart is made better through trouble.

It is better to listen to a wise person's rebuke than to listen to the praise of fools.

The conclusion of something is better than its beginning, and a patient attitude is more valuable than a proud one.

Never ask "Why does the past seem so much better than now?" because this question does not come from wisdom.

Indeed, wisdom gives protection, just like money does, but it's better to know that wisdom gives life, to those who have mastered it.

Wisdom given as strength to a wise person is better than having ten powerful men in the city.

So then I recommended enjoyment of life, because it is better on earth for a man to eat, drink, and be happy, since this will stay with him throughout his struggle all the days of his life, which God grants him on earth.

"While someone is among the living, hope remains," because "it is better to be a living dog than to be a dead lion."

So I concluded, "Wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless, the wisdom of the poor is rejected his words are never heard."

Wisdom is better than weapons of war, and a single sinner can destroy a lot of good.

Let him kiss me over and over again! Your love is better than wine.

How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride. How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume than all kinds of spices.

"How terrible it will be for those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute what is bitter for what is sweet and what is sweet for what is bitter!"

"Give us advice; reach a decision! Cast your shadow as if night had come at high noon. Shelter the fugitives, And don't betray a single refugee.

Therefore I said: "Look away from me; and let me weep bitter tears; don't try to console me over the destruction of the daughter of my people."

No longer do they drink wine accompanied by singing; even beer tastes bitter to those who drink it.

From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise: "Glory to the Righteous One!' "But I say, "I am pining away, I'm pining away. How terrible things are for me! For treacherous people betray treacherous people are betraying with treachery!'"

He has turned the tables on you as if the potter were thought to be like heat. Can what is made say of the one who made it, "He did not make me?' Or can what is formed say of the ones who formed it, "He has no skill?'

"How terrible it will be for you, destroyer, you who have not been destroyed yourself! And how terrible it will be for you, traitor, one whom people have not betrayed! When you have sunk so low in destroying others, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betraying, they will betray you."

I said, "Must I leave in the prime of my life? Must I be consigned to the control of Sheol? Bitter are my years!"

"Look! The nations are like a drop in a bucket, and are reckoned as dust on the scales. Look! He even lifts up the islands like powder!

"You are stirring up one from the north, and they are coming from the rising of the sun; and he will be called by his name. Rulers will arrive like mud; just like a potter, he will trample the clay.

to them I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.

""Come!' they say, "let's have some wine, and let's fill ourselves with strong drink! Then, tomorrow will be like today, or even much better!'"

But as for you, O LORD, you are our Father; and we are clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hands.

Your wickedness will be punished, and you will be corrected due to your acts of apostasy. Know and see that it's evil and bitter for you to forsake the LORD your God, but the fear of me is not in you," declares the Lord GOD of the Heavenly Armies.

"Your lifestyles and your actions have brought these things on you. This is your calamity it is indeed bitter, for it has reached your heart!"

"They'll devour your harvest and your food. They'll devour your sons and your daughters. They'll devour your vines and your fig trees. With their swords they'll batter down your fortified cities in which you trust.

Daughter of my people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with bitter wailing, as one mourns at the death of an only son. For the destroyer will come on us suddenly.

"Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I'll allow you to hear my words."

So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was doing work at the potter's wheel.

But the vessel he was working on with the clay was ruined in the potter's hand. So he remade it into another vessel that seemed appropriate to him.

"Israel, can't I deal with you like this potter?" declares the LORD. "Look, Israel, like clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand.

This is what the LORD says: "Go and buy a potter's clay jug. Take along some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests.

and say to them, "This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies says: "In this same way I'll break this people and this city, just as someone breaks a potter's vessel which he then cannot put back together again. They'll bury corpses in Topheth until there is no more room to bury anyone.

This is what the LORD says: "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter crying. Rachel is crying, and she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no longer alive."

Indeed, at the ascent of Luhith people will go up with bitter weeping. At the descent of Horonaim the anguished cries over the destruction will be heard.

The roads that lead to Zion are in mourning, because no one travels to the festivals. All her gates are desolate; her priests are moaning. Her young women are grieving, and she is bitter.

Though the precious people of Zion were like fine gold, how they are valued like clay vessels, the handiwork of a potter!

Those who die by the sword are better off than those who die from starvation, who slowly waste away like those pierced through for lack of food from the fields.

therefore you'd better look out! I'm going to turn you over to men from the East, who will dominate you. You will become their property. They will set up military encampments and permanent places in which to live among you, and then they'll eat your fruit and drink your milk.

therefore you'd better watch out! I'm raising a clenched fist in your direction! I'm about to feed you to the surrounding nations as war plunder. I'm going to eliminate you as a nation and kill off those of you who survive to live in other countries. I'm going to destroy you, and that's how you'll learn that I am the LORD.'"

therefore you'd better watch out! I'm going to tear open Moab's flanks, starting with its frontier cities the very glory of the nation! including Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim.

I'll make both the population and the livestock increase throughout your territories. They'll increase and be fruitful. I'll make your territories to be settled like you were in the past, and you will be treated better than you ever were before. At that time you will know that I am the LORD.

At the end of ten days their appearance was better and their faces were well-nourished compared to the young men who ate the king's rich food.

"The feet and toes that you saw, made partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, represent a divided kingdom. It will still have the strength of iron, in that you saw iron mixed with clay.

She will pursue her lovers, but she won't catch up with them. She will seek them, but she won't find them. Then she will say, "I'll go back and return to my first husband, because it was better for me then than now.'

"Israel, the overgrown vine, bears fruit like itself; the more fruitful they become, the more altars they build. The better the land, the more ornate the stone idols.

Those of you who are making justice taste bitter, and who have thrown righteousness to the ground:

Cross over to Calneh and look around, then go on to that great city of Hamath, and from there go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory more extensive than yours?

I will turn your festivals into mourning, and all of your songs to dirges. I will cause all of you to put on sackcloth and to shave all of your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son, and its conclusion will be like the end of a bitter day."

Therefore, LORD, please kill me, because it's better for me to die than to live!"

When the sun rose, God prepared a harsh east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah's head, he became faint, and he begged to die. "It is better for me to die than to live!" he said.

"Are you any better than Thebes, which sits by the upper Nile, surrounded by water? The sea was her defense, the waters her wall of protection.

"The great Day of the LORD approaches How it comes, hurrying faster and faster! The sound of the Day of the LORD there includes the bitter cry of the mighty soldier.

While Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers Simon (also called Peter) and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea, because they were fishermen.

So if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your body parts than to have your whole body thrown into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away from you. It is better for you to lose one of your body parts than to have your whole body go into hell."

Now if that is the way God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and thrown into an oven tomorrow, won't he clothe you much better you who have little faith?

When Jesus went into Peter's house, he saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed, sick with a fever.

These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John;

Peter answered him, "Lord, if it's you, order me to come to you on the water."

Jesus said, "Come on!" So Peter got down out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came to Jesus.

Then Peter told him, "Explain to us this parable."

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!"

I tell you that you are Peter, and it is on this rock that I will build my congregation, and the powers of hell will not conquer it.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God be merciful to you, Lord! This must never happen to you!"

But Jesus turned and told Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an offense to me, because you are not thinking God's thoughts but human thoughts!"

Six days later, Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother John and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

Then Peter told Jesus, "Lord, it's good that we're here! If you want, I'll set up three shelters one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."

When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax came up to Peter and asked, "Your teacher pays the temple tax, doesn't he?"

He answered, "Yes." When Peter went home, Jesus spoke to him first and asked him, "What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings on the earth collect tolls or tributes? From their own subjects, or from foreigners?"

"If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a large millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned at the bottom of the sea.

"So if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life injured or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.

And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell fire.

Then Peter came up and asked him, "Lord, how many times may my brother sin against me and I have to forgive him? Seven times?"

"Look!" Peter replied. "We have left everything and followed you. So what will we get?"

Then many people will fall away, will betray one another, and will hate one another.

"But the wise ones replied, "No! There will never be enough for us and for you. You'd better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.'

and inquired, "What are you willing to give me if I betray Jesus to you?" They offered him 30 pieces of silver,

and from then on he began to look for an opportunity to betray Jesus.

While they were eating, he said, "I tell all of you with certainty, one of you is going to betray me."

He replied, "The man who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.

The Son of Man is going away, just as it has been written about him. How terrible it will be for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for him if he had never been born."

Then Judas, who was going to betray him, asked, "Rabbi, I'm not the one, am I?" Jesus told him, "You have said so."

But Peter told him, "Even if everyone else turns against you, I certainly won't!"

Peter told him, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!" And all the disciples said the same thing.

Taking Peter and the two sons of Zebedee with him, he began to be grieved and troubled.

When he went back to the disciples, he found them asleep. He told Peter, "So, you men couldn't stay awake with me for one hour, could you?

Peter, however, followed him at a distance as far as the high priest's courtyard. He went inside and sat down with the servants to see how this would end.

Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard when a servant girl came up to him and said, "You, too, were with Jesus the Galilean."

After a little while, the people who were standing there came up and told Peter, "Obviously you're also one of them, because your accent gives you away."

Peter remembered the words of Jesus when he said, "Before a rooster crows, you'll deny me three times." Then he went outside and cried bitterly.

So they decided to use the money to buy the Potter's Field as a burial ground for foreigners.

and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me."

He appointed the Twelve: Simon (whom he named Peter),

Jesus allowed no one to go further with him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.

Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah!" Jesus sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.