for, though they knew God, they have not honored him as God or given thanks to him, but they have indulged in futile speculations, until their stupid minds have become dark.

They called themselves wise, but they have turned into fools,

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.

But in your obstinacy and impenitence you are storing up wrath for yourself on the Day of Wrath, when the justice of God will burst forth.

but self-seeking people who are disloyal to the truth and responsive only to what is wrong will experience anger and fury,

but there will be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does right, the Jew first, and the Greek also,

Circumcision will help you only if you observe the Law; but if you are a lawbreaker, you might as well be uncircumcised.

The real Jew is the man who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, a spiritual, not a literal, thing. Such a man receives his praise not from men, but from God.

But if our wrongdoing brings out the uprightness of God, what are we to say? Is it wrong in God (I am putting it in ordinary human terms) to inflict punishment?

But, you say, if a falsehood of mine has brought great honor to God by bringing out his truthfulness, why am I tried for being a sinner?

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.

but by his mercy they are made upright for nothing, by the deliverance secured through Christ Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is shut out. On what principle? What a man does? No, but whether a man has faith.

there is but one God, and he will make the circumcised upright on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised upright because of theirs."

For if he was made upright by what he did, it is something to be proud of. But not to be proud of before God,

Now paying a workman is not considered a favor, but an obligation,

but a man who has no work to offer, but has faith in him who can make the ungodly upright, has his faith credited to him as uprightness.

In what circumstances? Was it after he was circumcised or before? Not after he was circumcised, but before;

and the forefather of those circumcised persons who not only share his circumcision but follow our forefather Abraham's example in the faith he had before he was circumcised.

For the promise made to Abraham and his descendants that the world should belong to him did not come to him or his descendants through the Law, but through the uprightness that resulted from his faith.

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

but also on ours, for it is to be credited also to us who have faith in him who raised from the dead our Lord Jesus,

But God proves his love for us by the fact that Christ died for us when we were still sinners.

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.

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

So you also must think of yourselves as dead to sin but alive to God, through union with Christ Jesus.

and you must not offer the parts of your bodies to sin as the instruments of wrong, but offer yourselves to God as men brought back from death to life, and offer the parts of your bodies to him as instruments of uprightness.

For sin must no longer control you, for you live not under law but under mercy.

What follows, then? Are we to sin, because we live not under law but under mercy? Certainly not!

But, thank God! though you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from your hearts to the standard of teaching that you received,

But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you get is consecration, and the final result is eternal life.

For the wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is eternal life through union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, the marriage law no longer applies to her.

So if she marries another man while her husband is alive, she is called an adulteress, but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and can marry someone else without being an adulteress.

But now the Law no longer applies to us; we have died to what once controlled us, so that we can now serve in the new Spirit, not under the old letter.

I was once alive and without law, but when the command came, sin awoke and then I died;

We know that the Law is spiritual, but I am physical, sold into slavery to sin.

But if I do what I do not want to do, I acknowledge that the Law is right.

For I know that nothing good resides in me, that is, in my physical self; I can will, but I cannot do what is right.

But if I do the things that I do not want to do, it is not I that am acting, it is sin, which has possession of me.

but all through my body I see another principle in conflict with the law of my reason, which makes me a prisoner to that law of sin that runs through my body.

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 though it was impossible for the Law to do it, hampered as it was by our physical limitations, God, by sending his own Son in our sinful physical form, as a sin-offering, put his condemnation upon sin through his physical nature,

so that the requirement of the Law might be fully met in our case, since we live not on the physical but on the spiritual plane.

For to be physically minded means death, but to be spiritually minded means life and peace.

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.

But if Christ is in your hearts, though your bodies are dead in consequence of sin, your spirits have life in consequence of uprightness.

So, brothers, we are under obligations, but not to the physical nature, to live under its control,

for if you live under the control of the physical you will die, but if, by means of the Spirit, you put the body's doings to death, you will live.

It is not a consciousness of servitude that has been imparted to you, to fill you with fear again, but the consciousness of adoption as sons, which makes us cry, "Abba!" that is, Father.

It was in this hope that we were saved. But a hope that can be seen is not a hope, for who hopes for what he sees?

But when we hope for something that we do not see, we wait persistently for it.

In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit itself pleads for us with inexpressible yearnings,

Will not he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, with that gift give us everything?

As the Scripture says, "For your sake we are being put to death all day long, We are treated like sheep to be slaughtered."

But in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us.

nor are they all children of Abraham because they are descended from him, but he was told, "The line of Isaac will be called your descendants."

That is to say, it is not his physical descendants who are children of God, but his descendants born in fulfilment of the promise who are considered his true posterity.

For before the children were born or had done anything either good or bad, in order to carry out God's purpose of selection, which depends not on what men do but on his calling them,

As the Scripture says, "I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau."

So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on the mercy of God.

including us whom he has called not only from among the Jews but from among the heathen?

And why? Because they did not seek it through faith, but through doing certain things. They stumbled over that stone that makes people stumble,

as the Scripture says, "See, I will put a stone on Zion to make people stumble, and a rock to trip over, But no one who has faith in it will be disappointed."

I can testify to their sincere devotion to God, but it is not an intelligent devotion.

But this is what the uprightness that springs from faith says: "Do not say to yourself, 'Who will go up to heaven?' " that is, to bring Christ down;

But how are they to call upon him if they have not believed in him? And how are they to believe him if they have never heard him? And how are they to hear unless someone preaches to them?

But I ask, had they no opportunity to hear it? On the contrary, "Their voices have gone all over the earth, And their words to the ends of the world."

But I ask again, did Israel fail to understand? Why, to begin with, Moses said, "I will make you jealous of what is no nation at all, I will exasperate you at a senseless nation."

But of Israel he said, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people."

But what is God's reply? "I have left myself seven thousand men who have never knelt to Baal!"

But if it is by his mercy, it is not for anything they have done. Otherwise, his mercy would not be mercy at all.

What follows? Israel failed to get what it sought, but those whom God selected got it.

But if their false step has so enriched the world, and their defeat has so enriched the heathen, how much more good the addition of their full number will do!

But it is to you who are of the heathen that I am speaking. So far then as I am an apostle to the heathen, I make the most of my ministry,

For if their rejection has meant the reconciling of the world, what can the acceptance of them mean but life from the dead?

"But," you will say, "branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in!"

That is true; but it was for their want of faith that they were broken off, and it is through your faith that you stand where you do. You ought not to feel proud; you ought to be afraid,

Observe then the goodness and the severity of God??everity to those who have fallen, but goodness to you, provided you abide by his goodness, for otherwise, you in your turn will be pruned away.

From the point of view of the good news they are treated as enemies of God on your account; but from the point of view of God's choice, they are dear to him because of their forefathers,

For just as you once disobeyed God, but now have had mercy shown you because they disobeyed,

You must not adopt the customs of this world but by your new attitude of mind be transformed so that you can find out what God's will is??hat is good, pleasing, and perfect.

By the favor that God has shown me, I would tell every one of you not to think too highly of himself, but to think reasonably, judging himself by the degree of faith God has allowed him.

not wanting in devotion, but on fire with the Spirit. Serve the Lord.

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be too ambitious, but accept humble tasks. Do not be conceited.

Do not take your revenge, dear friends, but leave room for God's anger, for the Scripture says, "Vengeance belongs to me; I will pay them back, says the Lord."

Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.

for they are God's agents to do you good. But if you do wrong you may well be afraid, for they do not carry swords for nothing. They are God's servants, to execute his wrath upon wrongdoers.

You must obey them, therefore, not only to escape God's wrath, but as a matter of principle,

The night is nearly over; the day is at hand. So let us throw aside the deeds of darkness, and put on the armor of light.

But clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about gratifying your physical cravings.

One man's faith allows him to eat anything, while the overscrupulous man eats nothing but vegetables.

Therefore let us not criticize one another any more. You must resolve instead never to put any hindrance or obstacle in your brother's way.

The Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of uprightness, peace, and happiness through the possession of the holy Spirit.

You must not, just for the sake of food, undo the work of God. It is true, everything is clean, but it is wrong for a man to hurt the consciences of others by what he eats.

but the man who has misgivings about eating, and then eats, is thereby condemned, for he is not following his convictions, and anything that does not rest on conviction is wrong.

It is the duty of us who are strong to put up with the weaknesses of those who are immature, and not just suit ourselves.

Christ did not please himself, but as the Scripture says, "The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me."