and as the ransom of the two hundred and seventy-three, - who are mere than the Levites, of the firstborn of the sons of Israel,

If a man is found kidnapping a person from among his fellow Israelites, and regards him as mere property and sells him, that kidnapper must die. In this way you will purge evil from among you.

"We're not looking for mere silver or gold to be paid by Saul or his household to us," the Gibeonites responded to him. "And it's not for us to execute anyone in Israel." In reply, David asked, "So what are you asking me to do for you?"

Hazael said, “How could your servant, a mere dog, do this monstrous thing?”

Elisha answered, “The Lord has shown me that you will be king over Aram.”

You think mere words are strategy and strength for war. What are you now relying on so that you have rebelled against me?

For all of the gods of the other nations are mere idols, but the LORD fashioned the heavens!

Then Asa cried out to the Lord his God: “Lord, there is no one besides You to help the mighty and those without strength. Help us, Lord our God, for we depend on You, and in Your name we have come against this large army. Yahweh, You are our God. Do not let a mere mortal hinder You.”

He has with him mere human strength, but the Lord our God is with us to help us and fight our battles!" The army was encouraged by the words of King Hezekiah of Judah.

Do you think that you can disprove my words
or that a despairing man’s words are mere wind?

“For God is not a [mere] man, as I am, that I may answer Him,
That we may go to court and judgment together.

“Yet these are just the fringes of His ways [mere samples of His power],
The faintest whisper of His voice!
Who can contemplate the thunder of His [full] mighty power?”

“For I do not know how to flatter, [in an appropriate way, and I fear that],
My Maker would soon take me away.

Terrify them, Lord! Let the nations know they are mere mortals! (Selah)

to render judgment [for the] fatherless and [the] oppressed [so that] a [mere] mortal from the earth will no longer cause terror.

By the Lord's decree the heavens were made; by a mere word from his mouth all the stars in the sky were created.

Look, you have made my days [mere] handbreadths, and my lifespan as nothing next to you. Surely every person standing firm [is] complete vanity. Selah

Surely a man walks about as a [mere] {shadow}; surely in vain they bustle about. He heaps up [possessions] but does not know who [will] gather them [in].

“With rebukes You discipline man for sin;
You consume like a moth what is precious to him;
Surely every man is a mere breath [a wisp of smoke, a vapor that vanishes]. Selah.

God, whose word I praise, God I trust; I do not fear. What can [mere] flesh do to me?

God I trust; I do not fear. What can [mere] humankind do to me?

Human beings are a mere vapor, while people in high positions are not what they appear. When they are placed on the scales, they weigh nothing; even when weighed together, they are less than nothing.

How desolate they become in a mere moment! Terrifying judgments make their demise complete!

I am counted among those who go down to the pit (grave);
I am like a man who has no strength [a mere shadow],

Remember how fleeting my lifetime is;
For what vanity, [for what emptiness, for what futility, for what wisp of smoke] You have created all the sons of men!

The Lord knows the thoughts of man,
That they are a mere breath.

Yahweh [is] for me; I do not fear. What can [mere] humans do to me?

The human person is a mere empty breath; his days are like a fading shadow.

Do not look to nobles, nor to mere human beings who cannot save.

It is, mere sport to a stupid man, to commit lewdness, but, wisdom, pertaineth to a man of understanding.

In all labor there is profit,
But mere talk leads only to poverty.

By mere words a servant will not be corrected; even though he understands, there will be no response.

"As for human beings," I told myself, "God puts them to the test, that they might see themselves as mere animals."

Against all the ships of Tarshish
And against all the beautiful craft.

And I will make mere lads their princes,
And capricious children will rule over them,

For though thy people, O Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, A mere remnant, shall return of them, - A full end decreed, bringeth in, justice, like a flood;

He will take delight in obeying the Lord. He will not judge by mere appearances, or make decisions on the basis of hearsay.

The princes of Zoan are mere fools;
The advice of Pharaoh’s wisest advisers has become stupid.
How can you men say to Pharaoh,
“I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings”?

Look, the Lord will throw you far away, you mere man! He will wrap you up tightly.

The Egyptians are mere humans, not God; their horses are made of flesh, not spirit. The Lord will strike with his hand; the one who helps will stumble and the one being helped will fall. Together they will perish.

I say, ‘Your plan and strength for the war are only empty words.’ Now in whom do you trust and on whom do you rely, that you have rebelled against me?

and have thrown their gods into the fire but they are not gods, but rather the products of human hands, mere wood and stone. So the Assyrians destroyed them.

Behold, all his fellows will be disappointed; and the workmen are mere men. Let them all be gathered together. Let them stand up. They will fear. They will be put to shame together.

"Woe to the one who quarrels with his makers, a mere potsherd with the potsherds of the earth! Woe to the one who says to the one forming him, "What are you making?' or "Your work has no human hands?'!

Why is it that when I came, no one was there? Why was there no answer when I called? Was my arm too short to redeem you? Do I lack the strength to rescue you? Look! By my mere rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn rivers into a desert. Their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst.

"I yes, I am the one who comforts you. Who are you, that you are so afraid of humans who will die, descendants of mere men, who have been made like grass?

When you cry out, let your collection deliver you! The wind will carry them all off, and a mere breath will sweep them all away." "But whoever takes refuge in me will possess the land, and will inherit my holy mountain.

"And there will no longer be in it a young boy who lives only a few days, or an old person who does not live out his days; for one who dies at a hundred years will be thought a mere youth, and one who falls short of a hundred years will be considered accursed.

I see one destruction after another taking place, so that the whole land lies in ruins. I see our tents suddenly destroyed, their curtains torn down in a mere instant.

“How can you say, ‘We are wise,
And the law of the Lord is with us [and we are learned in its language and teachings]’?
Behold, [the truth is that] the lying pen of the scribes
Has made the law into a lie [a mere code of ceremonial observances].

Oh that I had in the wilderness
A lodging place (a mere shelter) for wayfaring men,
That I might leave my people
And go away from them!
For they are all adulterers [worshiping idols instead of the Lord],
[They are] an assembly of treacherous men [of weak character, men without integrity].

Mere palm-trunks turned, they are and cannot speak, They must needs be, carried, for they cannot take a step, Be not afraid of them, for they cannot do harm, And even to do good, is not in their power.

They are worthless, mere objects to be mocked. When the time comes to punish them, they will be destroyed.

The Lord says, "I will put a curse on people who trust in mere human beings, who depend on mere flesh and blood for their strength, and whose hearts have turned away from the Lord.

"Micah from Moresheth prophesied during the time Hezekiah was king of Judah. He told all the people of Judah, 'The Lord who rules over all says, "Zion will become a plowed field. Jerusalem will become a pile of rubble. The temple mount will become a mere wooded ridge."'

Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you now fear [as if he were deity]; do not be afraid of him,’ says the Lord, ‘for [he is a mere man, but I am the living, omniscient God and] I am with you [always] to protect you and to deliver you from his hand.

You have made us mere offscouring and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.

For this reason no watered trees will grow so tall; their tops will not reach into the clouds, nor will the well-watered ones grow that high. For all of them have been appointed to die in the lower parts of the earth; they will be among mere mortals, with those who descend to the pit.

by setting their threshold by My threshold and their doorpost beside My doorpost, with [only] the wall between Me and them. They have defiled and desecrated My holy name by the vile atrocities which they have committed. So I have consumed them in My anger.

The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing has gone from me. If you will not make known to me the dream, with its meaning, you will be made into mere members, and your houses shall be made an outhouse.

And a decree is given by me, that every people, nation, and language, who speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be made into mere members, and his house shall be made an outhouse. Because there is no other God who can deliver in this way.

As for My sacrificial offerings,
They sacrifice the meat [as a mere formality] and eat it,
But the Lord is not pleased with them and does not accept them.
Now He will remember and take into account their wickedness and guilt,
And punish them for their sins.
They will return [in captivity] to [another] Egypt [that is, Assyria].

They speak mere words, swearing falsely in making a covenant; therefore shall judgment spring up as hemlock in the furrows of the fields.

Is there wickedness (idolatry) in Gilead?
Surely the people there are worthless.
In Gilgal [they defy Me when] they sacrifice bulls,
Yes, [after My judgment] their [pagan] altars are like the stone heaps
In the furrows of the fields.

They have destroyed our vines; they have turned our fig trees into mere splinters. They have completely stripped off the bark and thrown them aside; the twigs are stripped bare.

Look! [Is it] not from Yahweh of hosts that people labor for mere fire, and nations exhaust themselves for mere vanity?

He takes his battle position and shakes the earth; with a mere look he frightens the nations. The ancient mountains disintegrate; the primeval hills are flattened. He travels on the ancient roads.

‘What are you, O great mountain [of obstacles]? Before Zerubbabel [who will rebuild the temple] you will become a plain (insignificant)! And he will bring out the capstone [of the new temple] with loud shouts of “Grace, grace to it!”’”

"He will say, "I am no mere prophet. A servant of mankind am I, because a man dedicated to this have I been from my youth.'

When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were under the power of demons, and at a mere word He drove the spirits out, and cured all who were sick,

Truly I tell you, whoever gives a mere drink of cold water to one of these least significant [disciples of mine] because he is a disciple, will certainly not lose his [temporal or eternal] reward."

and begging him to let them touch the mere tassel of his robe ??and all who touched it got perfectly well.

but it is in vain they worship Me, while they lay down precepts which are mere human rules.'"

"Blessed are you, Simon Bar-jonah," said Jesus; "for mere human nature has not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven.

Jesus looked at them and replied, "This is impossible for mere humans, but for God all things are possible."

and He instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a mere staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belt—

But idle is their devotion while they lay down precepts which are mere human rules.'

Jesus looked at them and replied, "This is impossible for mere humans, but not for God; all things are possible for God."

Consider therefore whether the light that is in you is anything but mere darkness.

He replied, "What is impossible for mere humans is possible for God."

What they said seemed to the Apostles mere nonsense, and they did not believe them.

But the testimony I receive is not from man [a merely human witness]; but I say these things so that you may be saved [that is, have eternal life].

It is the Spirit that gives Life; mere flesh is of no avail. In the teaching that I have been giving you there is Spirit and there is Life.

The guards replied, “Never [at any time] has a man talked the way this Man talks!”

The Jews answered Him, “We are not going to stone You for a good work, but for blasphemy, because You, a mere man, make Yourself out to be God.”

It was not as a mere man that he thus spoke. But being High Priest that year he was inspired to declare that Jesus was to die for the nation,

If anyone does not remain in union with me, he is thrown away as a mere branch and is dried up; then it is picked up and thrown into the fire and burned up.

They were astonished to notice how outspoken Peter and John were, and to discover that they were uncultured persons and mere outsiders; they recognized them as having been companions of Jesus,

But Peter helped him up, saying, "Stand up. I too am a mere mortal."

So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on those who practice these things and then do them yourself, do you think you will escape God's judgment?

For no person will be justified [freed of guilt and declared righteous] in His sight by [trying to do] the works of the Law. For through the Law we become conscious of sin [and the recognition of sin directs us toward repentance, but provides no remedy for sin].

When we were living in the flesh [trapped by sin], the sinful passions, which were awakened by [that which] the Law [identifies as sin], were at work in our body to bear fruit for death [since the willingness to sin led to death and separation from God].

Present suffering, I hold, is a mere nothing compared to the glory that we are to have revealed.

On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers [arrogantly] back to God and dares to defy Him? Will the thing which is formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”

For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a mere wild olive tree, and have been grafted, contrary to nature, into a fruitful olive tree, how much more shall these, the natural branches, be regrafted into their own olive tree?

I now pass to another subject. Receive as a friend a man whose faith is weak, but not for the purpose of deciding mere matters of opinion.

You must not break down God's work for the mere sake of food! Everything may be clean, but it is wrong for a man to prove a stumbling-block by what he eats;

The Message of the Cross is indeed mere folly to those who are in the path to Ruin, but to us who are in the path of Salvation it is the very power of God.

We are proclaiming Christ crucified!-to the Jews an obstacle, to the Gentiles mere folly,

The merely intellectual man rejects the teaching of the Spirit of God; for to him it is mere folly; he cannot grasp it, because it is to be understood only by spiritual insight.

However, brothers and sisters, I could not talk to you as to spiritual people, but [only] as to worldly people [dominated by human nature], mere infants [in the new life] in Christ!