A MILITANT MESSAGE

          ‘Casting down imaginations, and every high thing
          that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and
          bringing every thought into captivity to the
          obedience of Christ; and being in readiness to
          avenge all disobedience, when your obedience shall
          be fulfilled.’–2 COR. x. 5 and 6 (R.V.).
None of Paul’s letters are so full of personal feeling as this one is.
It is written, for the most part, at a white heat; he had heard from his
trusted Titus tidings which on one hand filled him with a thankfulness
of which the first half of the letter is the expression; but there had
also been tidings of a very different kind, and from this point onwards
the letter is seething with the feelings which these had produced. There
was in the Corinthian Church a party, probably Judaisers, which denied
his authority and said bitter things about his character. They
apparently had contrasted the force of his letters and the feebleness of
his ‘bodily presence’ and speech. They insinuated that his ‘bark was
worse than his bite.’ Their language put into plain English would be
something like this, ‘Ah! He is very bold at a distance, let him come
and face us and we shall see a difference. Vapouring in his letters, he
will be meek enough when he is here.’
These slanderers seem to have thought of Paul as if he ‘warred according
to flesh,’ and it is this charge, that he was actuated in his opposition
to the evils in Corinth by selfish considerations and worldly interests,
which seems to have set the Apostle on fire. In answer he pours out
quick, indignant questionings, sharp irony, vehement self-vindication,
passionate remonstrances, flashes of wrath, sudden jets of tenderness.
What a position for him to have to say, ‘I am not a low schemer; I am
not working for myself.’ Yet it is the common lot of all such men to be
misread by little, crawling creatures who cannot believe in heroic
self-forgetfulness. He answers the taunt that he ‘walked according to
the flesh’ in the context by saying, ‘Yes, I live in the flesh, my
outward life is like that of other men, but I do not go a-soldiering
_according_ to the flesh. It is not for my own sinful self that I get
the rules of my life’s battle, neither do I get my weapons from the
flesh. They could not do what they do if that were their origin: they
are of God and therefore mighty.’ Then the metaphor as it were catches
fire, and in our text he expands the figure of a warfare and sets before
us the destruction of fortresses, the capture of their garrisons, and
the leading of them away into another land, the stern punishment of the
rebels who still hold out, and the merciful delay in administering it.
It has been suggested that there is an allusion in our text to the
extermination of the pirates in Paul’s native Cilicia which happened
some fifty or sixty years before his birth and ended in destroying their
robber-holds and taking some thousands of prisoners. Whether that be so
or no, the Apostle’s kindled imagination sets forth here great truths as
to the effects which his message is meant to produce and, thank God, has
produced.
I. The opposing fortresses.
The Apostle conceives of himself and of his brother preachers of Christ
as going forth on a merciful warfare. He thinks of strong rock
fortresses, with lofty walls set on high, and frowning down on any
assailants. No doubt he is thinking first of the opposition which he had
to front in Corinth from the Judaisers to whom we have referred, but the
application of the metaphor goes far beyond the petty strife in Corinth
and carries for us the wholesome lesson that one main cause which keeps
men back from Christ is a too high estimate of themselves. Some of us
are enclosed in the fortress of self-sufficiency: we will not humbly
acknowledge our dependence on God, and have turned self-reliance into
the law of our lives. There are many voices, some of them sweet and
powerful, which to-day are preaching that gospel. It finds eager
response in many hearts, and there is something in us all to which it
appeals. We are often tempted to say defiantly, ‘Who is Lord over us?’
And the teaching that bids us rely on ourselves is so wholly in accord
with the highest wisdom and the noblest life that what is good and what
is evil in each of us contribute to reinforce it. Self-dependence is a
great virtue, and the mother of much energy and nobleness, but it is
also a great error and a great sin. To be so self-sufficing as not to
need externals is good; to be so self-sufficing as not to need or to see
God is ruin and death. The title which, as one of our great thinkers
tells us, a humourist put on the back of a volume of heterodox tracts,
‘Every man his own redeemer,’ makes a claim for self-sufficiency which
more or less unconsciously shuts out many men from the salvation of
Christ.
There is the fortress of culture and the pride of it in which many of us
are to-day entrenched against the Gospel. The attitude of mind into
which persons of culture tend to fall is distinctly adverse to their
reception of the Gospel, and that is not because the Gospel is adverse
to culture, but because cultured people do not care to be put on the
same level with publicans and harlots. They would be less disinclined to
go into the feast if there were in it reserved seats for superior people
and a private entrance to them. If the wise and prudent were more of
both, they would be liker the babes to whom these things are revealed,
and they would be revealed to them too. Not knowledge but the
superciliousness which is the result of the conceit of knowledge hinders
from God, and is one of the strongest fortresses against which the
weapons of our warfare have to be employed.
There is the fortress of ignorance. Most men who are kept from Christ
are so because they know neither themselves nor God. The most widely
prevailing characteristic of the superficial life of most men is their
absolute unconsciousness of the fact of sin; they neither know it as
universal nor as personal. They have never gone deeply enough down into
the depths of their own hearts to have come up scared at the ugly things
that lie sleeping there, nor have they ever reflected on their own
conduct with sufficient gravity to discern its aberrations from the law
of right, hence the average man is quite unconscious of sin, and is a
complete stranger to himself. The cup has been drunk by and intoxicated
the world, and the masses of men are quite unaware that it has
intoxicated them.
They are ignorant of God as they are of themselves, and if at any time,
by some flash of light, they see themselves as they are, they think of
God as if He were altogether such an one as themselves, and fall back on
a vague trust in the vaguer mercy of their half-believed-in God as their
hope for a vague salvation. Men who thus walk in a vain show will never
feel their need of Jesus, and the lazy ignorance of themselves and the
as lazy trust in what they call their God, are a fortress against which
it will task the power of God to make any weapons of warfare mighty to
its pulling down.
II. The casting down of fortresses.
The first effect of any real contact with Christ and His Gospel is to
reveal a man to himself, to shatter his delusive estimates of what he
is, and to pull down about his ears the lofty fortress in which he has
ensconced himself. It seems strange work for what calls itself a Gospel
to begin by forcing a man to cry out with sobs and tears, Oh, wretched
man that I am! But no man will ever reach the heights to which Christ
can lift him, who does not begin his upward course by descending to the
depths into which Christ’s Gospel begins its work by plunging him.
Unconsciousness of sin is sure to lead to indifference to a Saviour, and
unless we know ourselves to be miserable and poor and blind and naked,
the offer of gold refined by fire and white garments that we may clothe
ourselves will make no appeal to us. The fact of sin makes the need for
a Saviour; our individual sense of sin makes us sensible of our need of
a Saviour.
Paul believed that the weapons of his warfare were mighty enough to cast
down the strongest of all strongholds in which men shut themselves up
against the humbling Gospel of salvation by the mercy of God. The
weapons to which he thus trusted were the same to which Jesus pointed
His disciples when, about to leave them, He said, ‘When the Comforter is
come He will convict the world of sin because they believe not in Me.’
Jesus brought to the world the perfect revelation of the holiness of
God, and set before us all a divine pattern of manhood to rebuke and
condemn our stained and rebellious lives, and He turned us away from the
superficial estimate of actions to the careful scrutiny of motives. By
all these and many other ways He presented Himself to the world a
perfect man, the incarnation of a holy God and the revelation and
condemnation of sinful humanity. Yet, all that miracle of loveliness,
gentleness, and dignity is beheld by men without a thrill, and they see
in Him no ‘beauty that they should desire Him,’ and no healing to which
they will trust. Paul’s way of kindling penitence in impenitent spirits
was not to brandish over them the whips of law or to seek to shake souls
with terror of any hell, still less was it to discourse with philosophic
calm on the obligations of duty and the wisdom of virtuous living; his
appeal to conscience was primarily the pressing on the heart of the love
of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. When the heart is melted, the
conscience will not long continue indurated. We cannot look lovingly and
believingly at Jesus and then turn to look complacently on ourselves.
Not to believe on Him is the sin of sins, and to be taught that it is so
is the first step in the work of Him who never merits the name of the
Comforter more truly than when He convicts the world of sin.
For a Christianity that does not begin with the deep consciousness of
sin has neither depth nor warmth and has scarcely vitality. The Gospel
is no Gospel, and we had almost said, ‘The Christ is no Christ’ to one
who does not feel himself, if parted from Christ, ‘dead in trespasses
and sins.’ Our religion depends for all its force, our gratitude and
love for all their devotion, upon our sense that ‘the chastisement of
our peace was laid upon Him, and that by His stripes we are healed.’
Since He gave Himself for us, it is meet that we give ourselves to Him,
but there will be little fervour of devotion or self-surrender, unless
there has been first the consciousness of the death of sin and then the
joyous consciousness of newness of life in Christ Jesus.
III. The captives led away to another land.
The Apostle carries on his metaphor one step further when he goes on to
describe what followed the casting down of the fortresses. The enemy,
driven from their strongholds, have nothing for it but to surrender and
are led away in captivity to another land. The long strings of prisoners
on Assyrian and Egyptian monuments show how familiar an experience this
was. It may be noted that perhaps our text regards the obedience of
Christ as being the far country into which ‘every thought was to be
brought.’ At all events Paul’s idea here is that the end of the whole
struggle between ‘the flesh’ and the weapons of God is to make men
willing captives of Jesus Christ. We are Christians in the measure in
which we surrender our wills to Christ. That surrender rests upon, and
is our only adequate answer to, His surrender for us. The ‘obedience of
Christ’ is perfect freedom; His captives wear no chains and know nothing
of forced service; His yoke is easy, not because it does not press hard
upon the neck but because it is lined with love, and ‘His burden is
light’ not because of its own weight but because it is laid on us by
love and is carried by kindred love. He only commands himself who gladly
lets Christ command him. Many a hard task becomes easy; crooked things
are straightened out and rough places often made surprisingly plain for
the captives of Christ, whom He leads into the liberty of obedience to
Him.
IV. Fate of the disobedient.
Paul thinks that in Corinth there will be found some stiff-necked
opponents of whom he cannot hope that their ‘obedience shall be
fulfilled,’ and he sees in the double issue of the small struggle that
was being waged in Corinth a parable of the wider results of the warfare
in the world. ‘Some believed and some believed not’; that has been the
brief summary of the experience of all God’s messengers everywhere, and
it is their experience to-day. No doubt when Paul speaks of ‘being in
readiness to avenge all disobedience,’ he is alluding to the exercise of
his apostolic authority against the obdurate antagonists whom he
contemplates as still remaining obdurate, and it is beautiful to note
the long-suffering patience with which he will hold his hand until all
that can be won has been won. But we must not forget that Paul’s
demeanour is but a faint shadow of his Lord’s, and that the weapons
which were ready to avenge all disobedience were the weapons of God. If
a man steels himself against the efforts of divine love, builds up round
himself a fortress of self-righteousness and locks its gates against the
merciful entrance of convictions of sin and the knowledge of a Saviour,
and if he therefore lives, year in, year out, in disobedience, the
weapons which he thinks himself to have resisted will one day make him
feel their edge. We cannot set ourselves against the salvation of Jesus
without bringing upon ourselves consequences which are wholly evil and
harmful. Torpid consciences, hungry hearts, stormy wills, tyrannous
desires, vain hopes and not vain fears come to be, by slow degrees, the
tortures of the man who drops the portcullis and lifts the bridge
against the entrance of Jesus. There are hells enough on earth if men’s
hearts were displayed.
But the love which is obliged to smite gives warning that it is ready to
avenge, long before it lets the blow fall, and does so in order that it
may never need to fall. As long as it is possible that the disobedient
shall become obedient to Christ, He holds back the vengeance that is
ready to fall and will one day fall ‘on all disobedience.’ Not till all
other means have been patiently tried will He let that terrible ending
crash down. It hangs over the heads of many of us who are all unaware
that we walk beneath the shadow of a rock that at any moment may be set
in motion and bury us beneath its weight. It is ‘in readiness,’ but it
is still at rest. Let us be wise in time and yield to the merciful
weapons with which Jesus would make His way into our hearts. Or if the
metaphor of our text presents Him in too warlike a guise, let us listen
to His own gentle pleading, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if
any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him.’

King James Bible

Bible Verses About love – John-1 3:11
For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

Bible Verses About love – Romans 16:5
Likewise [greet] the church that is in their house. Salute my wellbeloved Epaenetus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia unto Christ.

Bible Scriptures – Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

Bible Favorites

Bible Verses About love – Samuel-1 1:5
But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the LORD had shut up her womb.

Bible Verses About love – Deuteronomy 11:13
And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

Bible Verses About err – Proverbs 10:17
He [is in] the way of life that keepeth instruction: but he that refuseth reproof erreth.

Bible Verses About mightest – Mark 7:11
But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, [It is] Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; [he shall be free].

Bible Verses About dragon – Jeremiah 51:37
And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.

Bible Verses About lay – Leviticus 6:12
And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings.

Bible Verses About eighth – Numbers 29:35
On the eighth day ye shall have a solemn assembly: ye shall do no servile work [therein]:

Bible Verses About wash – Luke 11:38
And when the Pharisee saw [it], he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner.

Bible Verses About abhor – Isaiah 66:24
And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.

Bible Verses About marry – Matthew 5:32
But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

Bible Verses About branch – Ezekiel 17:7
There was also another great eagle with great wings and many feathers: and, behold, this vine did bend her roots toward him, and shot forth her branches toward him, that he might water it by the furrows of her plantation.

Bible Verses About trespass – Chronicles-2 30:7
And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against the LORD God of their fathers, [who] therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see.

Bible Verses About zebulun – Chronicles-2 30:11
Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem.

Bible Verses About wall – Isaiah 36:11
Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand [it]; and speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that [are] on the wall.

Bible Verses About face – Ezekiel 14:3
Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?

Bible Verses About low – Luke 23:27
And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.

Bible Verses About devil – Peter-1 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

Bible Verses About uncleanness – Leviticus 18:19
Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness.

Bible Verses About daily – Hebrews 10:11
And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:

Bible Verses About half – Esther 5:3
Then said the king unto her, What wilt thou, queen Esther? and what [is] thy request? it shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom.

Bible Verses About ithamar – Numbers 4:33
This [is] the service of the families of the sons of Merari, according to all their service, in the tabernacle of the congregation, under the hand of Ithamar the son of Aaron the priest.

Bible Verses About appearance – Daniel 10:6
His body also [was] like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.

Bible Verses About wife – Ezekiel 33:26
Ye stand upon your sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every one his neighbour's wife: and shall ye possess the land?

Bible Verses About salvation – Ephesians 6:17
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

Bible Verses About lying – John 13:25
He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it?

Bible Verses About baptism – Colossians 2:12
Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with [him] through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

Bible Verses About life – John 10:28
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand.

Bible Verses About joy – Matthew 28:8
And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.

Bible Verses About healing – Corinthians-1 12:28
And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

Bible Verses About kindness – Corinthians-2 6:6
By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,

Bible Verses About wisdom – Isaiah 29:14
Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, [even] a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise [men] shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent [men] shall be hid.

Bible Verses About women – Revelations 9:8
And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as [the teeth] of lions.

Bible Verses About worship – Deuteronomy 11:16
Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;

Bible Verses About youth – Psalms 127:4
As arrows [are] in the hand of a mighty man; so [are] children of the youth.

Bible Verses About visions – Daniel 7:1
In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, [and] told the sum of the matters.

Bible Verses About marriage – Deuteronomy 7:3
Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

Bible Verses About patience – Peter-2 1:6
And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

Bible Verses About fasting – Matthew 15:32
Then Jesus called his disciples [unto him], and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.

Bible Verses About grace – Genesis 34:11
And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give.

Bible Verses About poor – Leviticus 23:22
And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I [am] the LORD your God.

Bible Verses About heaven – Daniel 12:7
And I heard the man clothed in linen, which [was] upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever that [it shall be] for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these [things] shall be finished.

Bible Verses About money – Judges 16:18
And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath showed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand.

Bible Scriptures About possession – Genesis 50:13
For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.

Bible Scriptures About corn – Hosea 2:9
Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax [given] to cover her nakedness.

Bible Scriptures About heathen – Jeremiah 49:15
For, lo, I will make thee small among the heathen, [and] despised among men.

Bible Scriptures About soul – Psalms 146:1
Praise ye the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul.

Bible Scriptures About covenant – Psalms 78:37
For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.

Bible Scriptures About sabbath – John 19:31
The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and [that] they might be taken away.

Bible Scriptures About wicked – Jeremiah 23:11
For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the LORD.

Bible Scriptures About heavens – Psalms 50:6
And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God [is] judge himself. Selah.

Bible Scriptures About obedience – Romans 1:5
By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:

Bible Scriptures About captivity – Jeremiah 29:31
Send to all them of the captivity, saying, Thus saith the LORD concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite; Because that Shemaiah hath prophesied unto you, and I sent him not, and he caused you to trust in a lie:

Bible in Basic English

Bible Verses About wisdom – Revelation 7:12
So be it. Let blessing and glory and wisdom and praise and honour and power and strength be given to our God for ever and ever. So be it.

Bible Verses About faith – 1-Thessalonians 2:10
You are witnesses, with God, how holy and upright and free from all evil was our way of life among you who have faith;

Bible Verses About wife – Genesis 4:17
And Cain had connection with his wife and she became with child and gave birth to Enoch: and he made a town, and gave the town the name of Enoch after his son.

Bible Verses About fear – Isaiah 8:9
Have knowledge, O peoples, and be in fear; give ear, all you far-off parts of the earth:

Bible Verses About visions – 1-Chronicles 26:1
For the divisions of the door-keepers: of the Korahites, Meshelemiah, the son of Kore, of the sons of Ebiasaph.

Bible Verses About poor – Zechariah 7:10
Do not be hard on the widow, or the child without a father, on the man from a strange country, or on the poor; let there be no evil thought in your heart against your brother.

Bible Verses About dreams – Zechariah 10:2
For the images have said what is not true, and the readers of signs have seen deceit; they have given accounts of false dreams, they give comfort to no purpose: so they go out of the way like sheep, they are troubled because they have no keeper.

Bible Verses About life – 1-Samuel 7:15
And Samuel was judge of Israel all the days of his life.

Bible Verses About fathers – Jeremiah 16:3
For this is what the Lord has said about the sons and daughters who come to birth in this place, and about their mothers who have given them birth, and about their fathers who have given life to them in this land:

Bible Verses About peace – Isaiah 48:18
If only you had given ear to my orders, then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea:

Bible Verses About tongue – Romans 3:13
Their throat is like an open place of death; with their tongues they have said what is not true: the poison of snakes is under their lips:

Bible Verses About baptism – John 4:2
(Though, in fact, it was his disciples who gave baptism, not Jesus himself),

Bible Verses About birth – Genesis 38:28
And while she was in the act of giving birth, one of them put out his hand; and the woman who was with her put a red thread round his hand, saying, This one came out first.

Bible Verses About friend – Judges 14:20
But Samson's wife was given to the friend who had been his best man.

Bible Verses About joy – Luke 1:44
For, truly, when the sound of your voice came to my ears, the baby in my body made a sudden move for joy.

Bible Verses About money – Proverbs 20:14
A poor thing, a poor thing, says he who is giving money for goods: but when he has gone on his way, then he makes clear his pride in what he has got.

Bible Verses About clean – Numbers 19:14
This is the law when death comes to a man in his tent: everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, will be unclean for seven days.

Bible Verses About worship – Deuteronomy 13:2
And the sign or the wonder takes place, and he says to you, Let us go after other gods, which are strange to you, and give them worship;

Bible Verses About grace – Isaiah 60:10
And men from strange countries will be building up your walls, and their kings will be your servants: for in my wrath I sent punishment on you, but in my grace I have had mercy on you.

Bible Verses About heaven – 2-Kings 7:19
And that captain said to the man of God, Even if the Lord made windows in heaven, would such a thing be possible? And he said to him, Your eyes will see it, but you will not have a taste of the food.

World English Bible

Bible Verses About blameless – Judges 15:3
And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.

Bible Verses About beloved – James 2:5
Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?

Bible Verses About overturn – Ezekiel 21:27
I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no [more], until he come whose right it is; and I will give it [him].

Bible Verses About calamity – Proverbs 1:26
I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

Bible Verses About offspring – Isaiah 48:19
Thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.

Bible Verses About nail – Isaiah 22:23
And I will fasten him [as] a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father's house.

Bible Verses About ashamed – Joel 2:26
And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed.

Bible Verses About assyrian – Isaiah 10:5
O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.

Bible Verses About hide – Job 20:12
Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, [though] he hide it under his tongue;

Bible Verses About rubies – Lamentations 4:7
Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing [was] of sapphire:

Bible Verses About invited – Esther 5:12
Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and to morrow am I invited unto her also with the king.

Bible Verses About release – Matthew 27:26
Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered [him] to be crucified.

Bible Verses About joint – Genesis 32:25
And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.

Bible Verses About trap – Jeremiah 5:26
For among my people are found wicked [men]: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.

Bible Verses About greatness – Esther 10:2
And all the acts of his power and of his might, and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai, whereunto the king advanced him, [are] they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?

Bible Verses About chosen – Kings-2 21:7
And he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the house, of which the LORD said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever:

Bible Verses About earnest – Micha 7:3
That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge [asketh] for a reward; and the great [man], he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.

Bible Verses About access – Romans 5:2
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Bible Verses About petition – Esther 5:8
If I have found favour in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my petition, and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall prepare for them, and I will do to morrow as the king hath said.

Bible Verses About skirt – Jeremiah 13:22
And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, [and] thy heels made bare.