Then I said, "[They are] just simple people, they are foolish, for they know not the way of Yahweh, the law of their God.

"For this [reason] the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man--a king--who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves. And [when] he began to settle [them], someone was brought to him who owed ten thousand talents. And [because] he did not have [enough] to repay [it], the master ordered him to be sold, and his wife and his children and everything that he had, and to be repaid.

And [after] he had spent everything, there was a severe famine throughout that country, and he began to be in need.

that you were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, not having hope, and without God in the world.

Because you are saying, "I am rich, and have become rich, and I have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked,

For from the creation of the world, his invisible [attributes], both his eternal power and deity, are discerned clearly, being understood in the things created, so that they are without excuse. For [although they] knew God, they did not honor [him] as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasoning, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,read more.
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God with the likeness of an image of mortal human beings and birds and quadrupeds and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to immorality, [that] their bodies would be dishonored among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God with a lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed for eternity. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to degrading passions, for their females exchanged the natural relations for those contrary to nature, and likewise also the males, abandoning the natural relations with the female, were inflamed in their desire toward one another, males with males committing the shameless deed, and receiving in themselves the penalty that was necessary for their error. And just as they did not see fit {to recognize God}, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do the things [that are] not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greediness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malevolence. [They are] gossipers, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boasters, contrivers of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, faithless, unfeeling, unmerciful, who, [although they] know the requirements of God, that those who do such things are worthy of death, not only do they do the same [things], but also they approve of those who do [them].

although I [could] have confidence even in the flesh. {circumcised on the eighth day}, from the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew [born] from Hebrews, according to the law a Pharisee, according to zeal persecuting the church, according to the righteousness in the law being blameless.read more.
But whatever [things] were gain to me, these [things] I have considered loss because of Christ. {More than that}, even consider all [things] to be loss because of the surpassing greatness of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for the sake of whom I have suffered the loss of all [things], and consider [them] dung, in order that I may gain Christ

[although I] was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, but I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief,