| Work brings profit, but mere talk leads to poverty! | All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. |
| The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me? | The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? |
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| I, yes I, am the one who comforts you. So why are you afraid of mere humans, who wither like the grass and disappear? | I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mere mortals, human beings who are but grass. |
| I praise God for what he has promised. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me? | In God, whose word I praise— in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? |
| So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?” | So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” |
| What are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? | What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? |
| For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. | For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. |
| Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. | Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. |
| The Lord merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born. | By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. |
| But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. | Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. |
| When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. | And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. |
| They told you that in the last times there would be scoffers whose purpose in life is to satisfy their ungodly desires. These people are the ones who are creating divisions among you. They follow their natural instincts because they do not have God’s Spirit in them. | They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. |
| Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God. | Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. |
