| To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. | To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. |
| The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked what is perverse. | The lips of the righteous know what finds favor, but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse. |
|
| For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has—not according to what one does not have. | For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. |
| Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. | May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. |
| I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. | Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. |
| Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. | Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. |
| Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” | Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” |
| The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. | My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. |
| Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. | One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. |
| He said to them, “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) | “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) |
