And the tempter came up and said to him, "If you are God's son, tell these stones to turn into bread!"

and said to him, "If you are God's son, throw yourself down, for the Scripture says, " 'He will give his angels orders about you, And they will lift you up with their hands So that you may never strike your foot against a stone!' "

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called God's sons!

But I tell you not to swear at all, either by heaven, for it is God's throne,

But if God so beautifully dresses the wild grass, which is alive today and is thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more surely clothe you, you who have so little faith?

But if I am driving the demons out by the aid of God's Spirit, then the Kingdom of God has overtaken you.

And the men in the boat fell down before him and said, "You are certainly God's Son!"

But he answered, "Why do you too break God's command for the sake of what has been handed down to you?

If those days had not been cut short, nobody would have escaped, but for the sake of God's people those days will be cut short.

for false Christs and false prophets will appear, and they will show great signs and wonders to mislead God's chosen people if they can.

He trusts in God; let God deliver him if he cares for him, for he said he was God's son."

"What do you want of us, Jesus, you Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, you are God's holy One!"

and screamed out, "What do you want of me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? In God's name, I implore you, do not torture me."

for there will be such misery in those days as there has never been since the beginning of God's creation until now, and never will be again.

For false Christs and false prophets will appear, and they will show signs and wonders to mislead God's chosen people if they can.

So the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was caught up into heaven and took his seat at God's right hand.

And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have gained God's approval.

And the child grew up and became strong and thoughtful, with God's blessing resting on him.

And the devil said to him, "If you are God's son, tell this stone to turn into bread!"

And he took him to Jerusalem, and made him stand on the summit of the Temple, and said to him, "If you are God's son, throw yourself down from here,

"Ha! What do you want of us, Jesus, you Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are! You are God's Holy One!"

Once as the crowd was pressing about him to hear God's message, he happened to be standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,

And all the people, even the tax-collectors, when they heard him, acknowledged the justice of God's demands, by accepting baptism from John,

but the Pharisees and experts in the Law thwarted God's purpose for themselves, by refusing to be baptized by him.

This is what the figure means. The seed is God's message.

He answered, "My mother and my brothers are those who listen to God's message and obey it!"

But he said, "You might better say, 'Blessed are those who hear God's message and observe it!' "

Do not sparrows sell five for two cents? And yet not one of them is forgotten in God's sight.

But if God so dresses the wild grass, which is alive today, and is thrown into the furnace tomorrow, how much more surely will he clothe you, who have so little faith?

And he said to his father, 'Here I have served you all these years, and have never disobeyed an order of yours, and you have never given me a kid, so that I could entertain my friends.

I tell you, it was he who went back to his house with God's approval, and not the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted."

while the people stood looking on. Even the leading councilors jeered at him, and said, "He has saved others, let him save himself, if he is really God's Christ, his Chosen One!"

No one who believes in him has to come up for judgment. Anyone who does not believe stands condemned already, for not believing in God's only Son.

For he whom God has sent speaks God's words, for God gives him his Spirit without measure.

Then they said to him, "What must we do to carry out God's work?"

for it is God's bread that comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world."

Whoever is sprung from God listens to God's words. The reason you refuse to listen is that you are not sprung from God."

If those to whom God's message was addressed were called gods??nd the Scripture cannot be set aside??36 do you mean to say to me whom the Father has consecrated and made his messenger to the world, 'You are blasphemous,' because I said, 'I am God's Son'?

So he has been exalted to God's right hand, and has received from his Father and poured over us the holy Spirit that had been promised, as you see and hear.

When they had prayed, the place where they were meeting shook, and they were all filled with the holy Spirit, and fearlessly uttered God's message.

The apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power, and God's favor rested richly upon them.

So God's message continued to spread; the number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a great many priests accepted the faith.

Stephen, greatly strengthened by God's favor, did remarkable signs and wonders among the people.

But he, full of the holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw God's glory and Jesus standing at God's right hand.

And he said, "Look! I can see heaven open, and the Son of Man standing at God's right hand!"

When the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted God's message, they sent Peter and John there.

But Peter said to him, "Go to destruction with your money, for thinking you could buy God's gift with it!

As Peter was traveling about among them all, he happened to visit God's people at Lydda.

So I sent for you immediately, and you have very kindly come. Now we are all here in God's presence, to hear everything that the Lord has instructed you to say."

The apostles and brothers all over Judea heard that the heathen had also accepted God's message,

and the people shouted in applause, "It is a god's voice, not a man's!"

When they reached Salamis, they proclaimed God's message in the Jewish synagogues. They had John with them as their assistant.

He was attached to the governor, Sergius Paulus, who was an intelligent man. He sent for Barnabas and Saul and asked them to let him hear God's message.

Now David, after serving God's purposes in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his forefathers and did undergo decay,

The next Sabbath almost all the town gathered to hear God's message.

Then Paul and Barnabas spoke out plainly, and said, "God's message had to be told to you first, but since you thrust it off and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we now turn to the heathen.

When the heathen heard this they were delighted, and praised God's message, and all who were destined for eternal life believed,

and from there they sailed back to Antioch, where they had first been commended to God's favor for the work which they had now finished.

Then they told God's message to him and to all the members of his household.

But when the Jews at Thessalonica found out that God's message had been delivered at Berea by Paul, they came there too, to excite and stir up the populace.

For as I was going about and looking at the things you worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: 'To an Unknown God.' So it is what you already worship in ignorance that I am now telling you of.

So if we are God's children we ought not to imagine that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, wrought by human art and thought.

So he settled there for a year and a half, and taught them God's message.

He bade them goodbye, saying, "I will come back to you again if it is God's will." Then he sailed from Ephesus.

As he wanted to cross to Greece, the brothers wrote to the disciples there, urging them to welcome him. On his arrival there he was of great service to those who through God's favor had become believers,

But my life does not matter, if I can only finish my race and do the service intrusted to me by the Lord Jesus, of declaring the good news of God's favor.

for I have not shrunk from letting you know God's purpose without reserve.

But the people who stood near him said, "Do you mean to insult God's high priest?"

That was what I did at Jerusalem when on the authority of the high priests I put many of God's people in prison. When they were put to death, I cast my vote against them,

to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from Satan's control to God, so that they may have their sins forgiven and have a place among those who are consecrated through faith in me.'

To this day I have had God's help and I stand here to testify to high and low alike, without adding a thing to what Moses and the prophets declared would happen,

"Understand then that this message of God's salvation has been sent to the heathen. They will listen to it!"

Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, called as an apostle, set apart to declare God's good news,

through whom we have received God's favor and been commissioned in his name to urge obedience and faith upon all the heathen,

and to ask that somehow by God's will I may some day at last succeed in reaching you.

For I am not ashamed of the good news, for it is God's power for the salvation of everyone who has faith, of the Jew first and then of the Greek.

In it God's way of uprightness is disclosed through faith and for faith, just as the Scripture says, "The upright will have life because of his faith."

For God's anger is breaking forth from heaven against all the impiety and wickedness of the men who in their wickedness are suppressing the truth.

They know God's decree that those who act in this way deserve to die, yet they not only do it, but applaud any who do.

We know that God's judgment rightfully falls upon those who do such things as these.

Do you think so lightly of his wealth of kindness, forbearance, and patience, and fail to see that God's kindness ought to induce you to repent?

But now God's way of uprightness has been disclosed without any reference to law, though the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it.

It is God's way of uprightness and comes through having faith in Jesus Christ, and it is for all who have faith, without distinction.

and he was afterward given the mark of circumcision as the stamp of God's acknowledgment of the uprightness based on faith that was his before he was circumcised, so that he should be the forefather of all who, without being circumcised, have faith and so are credited with uprightness,

For the Law only brings down God's wrath; where there is no law, there is no violation of it.

That is why it all turns upon faith; it is to make it a matter of God's favor, so that the promise may hold good for all Abraham's descendants, not only those who are adherents of the Law, but also those who share the faith of Abraham. For he is the father of all of us;

He did not incredulously question God's promise, but his faith gave him power and he praised God

and hope will not disappoint us. For, through the holy Spirit that has been given us, God's love has flooded our hearts.

So if we have already been made upright by his death, it is far more certain that through him we shall be saved from God's anger!

If, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, it is far more certain that now that we are reconciled we shall be saved through sharing in his life!

But there is no comparison between God's gift and that offense. For if one man's offense made the mass of mankind die, God's mercy and his gift given through the favor of the one man Jesus Christ have far more powerfully affected mankind.

Nor is there any comparison between the gift and the effects of that one man's sin. That sentence arose from the act of one man, and was for condemnation; but God's gift arose out of many offenses and results in acquittal.

For if that one man's offense made death reign through that one man, all the more will those who receive God's overflowing mercy and his gift of uprightness live and reign through the one individual Jesus Christ.

Then law slipped in, and multiplied the offense. But greatly as sin multiplied, God's mercy has far surpassed it,

Thank God! it is done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So mentally I am a slave to God's law, but physically to the law of sin.

For to be physically minded means hostility to God, for it refuses to obey God's law, indeed it cannot obey it.

But you are not physical but spiritual, if God's Spirit has really taken possession of you; for unless a man has Christ's spirit, he does not belong to Christ.

For all who are guided by God's Spirit are God's sons.

The Spirit itself testifies with our spirits that we are God's children,

More than that, we ourselves, though we have in the Spirit a foretaste of the future, groan to ourselves as we wait to be declared God's sons, through the redemption of our bodies.