For when you were slaves of sin, you were free so far as doing right was concerned.

As far as I am concerned about you, my brothers, I am convinced that you especially are abounding in the highest goodness, richly supplied with perfect knowledge and competent to counsel one another.

I want you to be free from worldly worries. An unmarried man is concerned about the affairs of the Lord.

A married man is concerned about the affairs of the world, and how he can please his wife, and so his devotion is divided.

An unmarried woman or a girl is concerned about the affairs of the Lord, so as to be consecrated in body and spirit, but a married woman is concerned about the affairs of the world, and how she can please her husband.

For in the law of Moses it is written, "You must not muzzle an ox that is treading out your grain." Is it that God is concerned about oxen only?

I am not trying to recommend myself to you again. I am giving you ground for speaking well of me, that you may have something to say to those who are constantly prating about external privileges and not concerned about the state of the heart.

For see what this very sorrow, suffered in accordance with the will of God, has done for you! How earnest it has made you, how concerned to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how much it made you long to see me, how loyal to me, how determined to punish the offender! At every point you have cleared yourselves in the matter.

For another reason too, we, as far as we are concerned, are constantly giving thanks to God; that is, when you received the message you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the message of men but as the message of God, as it really is, which keeps on working in you who believe.