"A curse on you, you hypocritical scribes and Pharisees! For you pay tithes on mint and dill and cummin, and yet leave out the more vital matters of the law, justice, love and fidelity. These latter especially you ought to have done, but ought not to have left out the former.

So He said to them, "If any man divorces his wife to marry another woman, he commits adultery against his former wife,

But a curse on you Pharisees, because you pay tithes on mint, rue, and every tiny garden herb, but neglect justice and the love of God! These latter especially you ought to have done, but ought not to have neglected the former.

"Brothers, that Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit uttered by the mouth of David in the former times about Judas who became the guide to those who arrested Jesus;

But the disciples formed a circle about him, and he got up and went back to town. The next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.

But this enraged the Jews; so they got together some wicked loafers about the public square, formed a mob, and set the town in an uproar.

And many who became believers kept coming and confessing and uncovering their former practices.

After day had dawned, the Jews formed a conspiracy and took an oath not to eat or drink till they had killed Paul.

There were more than forty of them who formed this conspiracy.

For God once publicly offered Him in His death as a sacrifice of reconciliation through faith, to demonstrate His own justice (for in His forbearance God had passed over men's former sins);

for we know that our former self was crucified with Him, to make our body that is liable to sin inactive, so that we might not a moment longer continue to be slaves to sin.

You have heard, indeed, of my former conduct as an adherent of the Jewish religion, how I kept on furiously persecuting the church of God, and tried to destroy it,

only they kept hearing people say, "Our former persecutor is now preaching as good news the faith which once he tried to destroy,"

But at that former time, as you did not know the true God, you were slaves to gods that do not really exist,

O my dear children, I am suffering a mother's birth pangs for you again, until Christ is formed in you.

to lay aside, with your former way of living, your old self which is on the way to destruction in accordance with its deceptive impulses;

the former are preaching Christ from the motive of rivalry, not in sincerity, supposing that this is making it harder for me to bear my imprisonment.

the open secret, covered up from the people of former ages and generations, but now uncovered to God's people,

For Adam was formed first, and then Eve;

You must not forget your former leaders, for it was they who brought you the message of God. Consider how they closed their lives; imitate their faith.

For whoever lacks these qualities is blind -- or short-sighted-- and forgetful of the cleansing that he has received from his former sins.

For if, after men have escaped the corrupting ways of the world through a full knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they again become entangled in them and are conquered by them, then their last condition is worse than their former one.

For they willfully ignore the fact that long ago the heavens existed and the earth that had been formed by God's command out of water and through water,