And the tempter came up and said to Him, "If you are God's Son, order these stones to turn to bread."

and said to Him, "If you are God's Son, throw yourself down, for the Scripture says: "'He will give His angels directions about you, And they will bear you up on their hands, so you will 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,

Now if God so gorgeously dresses the wild grass which today is green but tomorrow is tossed into the furnace, will He not much more surely clothe you, O you with little faith?

And the men in the boat worshiped Him, and said, "You are certainly God's Son."

But He answered, "Why do you too break God's command for the sake of the rules that have been handed down to you?

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

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

And the army captain and his men, who were keeping guard over Jesus, who felt the earthquake and saw all that was taking place, were terribly frightened, and said, "Surely this was God's Son."

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

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

for there will be such misery at that time as has never been since the beginning of God's creation, and never will be again.

For false Christs and false prophets will announce themselves, and they will do signs and wonders to mislead, if possible, even God's chosen people.

And when the captain who stood facing him saw that He expired in this way, he said, "This man was surely God's Son!"

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

Then the devil said to Him, "If you are God's Son, order this stone to turn to a loaf of bread."

Then he took Him to Jerusalem, and had Him stand on the tip-top turret 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."

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 story means: The seed is God's message.

Then He answered them, "My mother and my brothers are those who listen to God's message and practice it."

But He said, "Yes, but better still, blessed are those who listen to God's message and practice it!"

Now if God so gorgeously dresses the wild grass which today is green but tomorrow is tossed into the furnace, how much more surely will He clothe you, O you with little faith?

But he answered his father, 'See! I have served you all these years and have never disobeyed a command of yours, but you have never given me even a kid, so that I could celebrate with my friends.

Whoever trusts in Him is never to come up for judgment, but whoever does not trust in Him has already received his sentence, because he has not trusted in the name of God's only Son.

But whoever is in the habit of living the truth will come out in the daylight, that his actions may be shown to be performed with God's help."

If anyone is willing to keep on doing God's will, he will know whether my teaching comes from God, or merely expresses my own ideas.

If men to whom God's message came are called gods -- and the Scriptures cannot be made null and void --

The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and in accordance with that law He deserves to die, for claiming to be God's Son."

He said this to point out the sort of death by which Peter was to glorify God. So after He had said this, He said to Peter, "Keep on following me!"

So He has been exalted to God's right hand and has received from His Father, as promised, and poured out upon us the Holy Spirit, as you see and hear.

When they had prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and continued courageously to speak God's message.

So with great power the apostles continued to give their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God's favor rested richly on them all.

So God's message continued to spread, and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem continued to grow rapidly; a large number, even of priests, continued to surrender to the faith.

But since he was full of the Holy Spirit, he looked right into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at God's right hand.

So he said, "Look! I 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.

Now, as Peter was going here and there among them all, he finally went down to God's people who lived at Lydda.

So at once I sent for you, and you have been kind enough to come. So now we are all here in God's presence to listen to anything that the Lord has commanded you to say."

Now the apostles and the brothers all over Judea heard that the heathen too had accepted God's message.

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

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

He was an intimate friend of the governor, Sergius Paulus, who was an intelligent man. The governor sent for Barnabas and Saul and in this way tried to hear God's message.

For David, after having served God's purpose in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his forefathers, and so he did experience decay,

The next sabbath almost the whole town turned out to hear God's message.

Then Paul and Barnabas courageously spoke out, "God's message had to be spoken to you Jews first, but since you continue to thrust it from you and since you show yourselves unworthy to receive eternal life, now and here we turn to the heathen.

The heathen kept on listening and rejoicing and giving the glory to God's message, and all who had been destined to eternal life believed,

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

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

But when the Jews at Thessalonica learned that God's message had been proclaimed at Berea by Paul, they came there too to excite the masses and stir up a riot.

For as I was going here and there and looking at the things you worship, I even found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' So it is about the Being whom you are in ignorance already worshiping that I am telling you.

Since then we are God's offspring, we ought not to suppose that His nature is like gold or silver or stone or anything carved by man's art and thought.

So for a year and a half he settled down among them and went on teaching God's message.

But as he bade them goodbye, he promised, "I will come back to you again, if it is God's will." Then he set sail from Ephesus.

Because he wished to cross to Greece, the brothers wrote and urged the disciples there to welcome him. On his arrival he rendered great service to those who through God's favor had believed,

But now I count as nothing the sacrifice of my life, if only I can finish my race and render the service entrusted to me by the Lord Jesus, of faithfully telling the good news of God's favor.

for I never shrank from telling you God's whole plan.

And now I commit you to the Lord, and to the message of His favor, which is able to build you up and to give you your proper possession among all God's consecrated people.

The people standing near him said, "Do you mean to insult God's high priest?"

That was what I did at Jerusalem; yes, I received authority from the high priests and shut behind the prison bars many of God's people. Yes, when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them, and often in all the synagogues

to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from Satan's power to God, so as to have their sins forgiven and have a possession among those that are consecrated by faith in me.'

"So you must understand that this message of God's salvation has been sent to the heathen; and they will listen to it!"

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

proved to be God's Son in power by the resurrection from the dead -- I mean, Jesus Christ, our Lord,

through whom we have received God's favor and a commission as an apostle in His name to urge upon all the heathen obedience inspired by faith,

to all those in Rome who are God's loved ones, called to be His people: spiritual blessing and peace be yours from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

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

For in the good news God's Way of man's right standing with Him is uncovered, the Way of faith that leads to greater faith, just as the Scripture says, "The upright man must live by faith."

For God's anger from heaven is being uncovered against all the impiety and wickedness of the men who in their wickedness are suppressing the truth;

Although they know full well God's sentence that those who practice such things deserve to die, yet they not only practice them but even applaud others who do them.

Now we know that God's judgment justly falls on those who practice such sins as these.

Do you think so little of the riches of God's kindness, forbearance, and patience, not conscious that His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

But in your stubbornness and impenitence of heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when the justice of God's judgments will be uncovered.

for there is no partiality in God's dealings.

What then, if some of them have proved unfaithful? Can their unfaithfulness make null and void God's faithfulness?

But now God's way of giving men right standing with Himself has come to light; a way without connection with the law, and yet a way to which the law and the prophets testify.

God's own way of giving men right standing with Himself is through faith in Jesus Christ. It is for everybody who has faith, for no distinction at all is made.

For everybody has sinned and everybody continues to come short of God's glory,

Afterward he received the mark of circumcision as God's seal of his right standing with Him on condition of faith which he had before he was circumcised, that he might be the forefather of all who have faith while still uncircumcised, that they might have their faith credited to them as right standing with God;

So it is conditioned on faith, that it might be in accordance with God's unmerited favor, so that the promise might be in force for all the descendants of Abraham, not only for those who belong to the law party but also for those who belong to the faith group of Abraham. He is the father of us all,

by whom we have an introduction through faith into this state of God's favor, in which we safely stand; and let us continue exulting in the hope of enjoying the glorious presence of God.

and hope never disappoints us; for through the Holy Spirit that has been given us, God's love has flooded our hearts.

So if we have already been brought into right standing with God by Christ's death, it is much more certain that by Him we shall be saved from God's wrath.

For if while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, it is much more certain that since we have been reconciled we shall finally be saved through His new life.

But God's free gift is not at all to be compared with the offense. For if by one man's offense the whole race of men have died, to a much greater degree God's favor and His gift imparted by His favor through the one man Jesus Christ, has overflowed for the whole race of men.

Then law crept in to multiply the offense. Though sin has multiplied, yet God's favor has surpassed it and overflowed,

For sin must not any longer exert its mastery over you, for now you are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor.

What are we to conclude? Are we to keep on sinning, because we are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor? Never!

For in accordance with my better inner nature I approve God's law,

Because one's thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means enmity to God, for it does not subject itself to God's law, nor indeed can it.

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

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirits that we are God's children;

that even nature itself might finally be set free from its bondage to decay, so as to share the glorious freedom of God's children.

Not only that but this too, we ourselves who enjoy the Spirit as a foretaste of the future, even we ourselves, keep up our inner groanings while we wait to enter upon our adoption as God's sons at the redemption of our bodies.

and He who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit thinks, for He pleads for His people in accordance with God's will.

Yes, we know that all things go on working together for the good of those who keep on loving God, who are called in accordance with God's purpose.

who can condemn them? Christ Jesus who died, or rather, who was raised from the dead, is now at God's right hand, and is actually pleading for us.

For they are Israelites; to them belong the privileges of sonship, God's glorious presence, the special covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, the promises,

But it is not that God's word has failed. For not everybody that is descended from Israel really belongs to Israel,