For merely hearing the law read does not make men upright with God, but men who practice the law will be recognized as upright.

What special privilege, then, has a Jew? Or, what benefit does circumcision confer?

They all have turned aside, all have become corrupt; No one does good, not even one!

For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham put his faith in God, and it was credited to him as right standing with God."

but the man who does no work, but simply puts his faith in Him who brings the ungodly into right standing with Himself, has his faith credited to him as right standing.

So David, too, describes the happiness of the man to whom God credits right standing with Himself, without the things he does having anything to do with it:

Happy the man whose sin the Lord does not charge against him!"

Now does this happiness come to the Jews alone, or to the heathen peoples too? For we say, "Abraham's faith was credited to him as right standing."

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.

But you are not living on the plane of the lower nature, but on the spiritual plane, if the Spirit of God has His home within you. Unless a man has the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

So one's destiny does not depend on his own willing or strenuous actions but on God's having mercy on him.

So you will ask me, "Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?"

But what does it say? "God's message is close to you, on your very lips and in your heart"; that is, the message about faith which we preach.

or of one who encourages others, in the field of encouragement; or one who gives his money, with liberality; or one who leads others, with earnestness; or one who does deeds of charity, with cheerfulness.

For civil authorities are not a terror to the man who does right, but they are to the man who does wrong. Do you want to have no dread of the civil authorities? Then practice doing right and you will be commended for it.

Love never does a wrong to one's neighbor; so love is the perfect satisfaction of the law.

The man who eats anything must not look down on the man who does not do so, nor must the man who does not do so condemn the man who does, for God has fully accepted him.

The man who keeps a certain day keeps it for the Lord. The man who eats anything does it for the Lord too, for he gives God thanks. The man who refuses to eat anything does it for the Lord too, and gives God thanks.

For the kingdom of God does not consist in what we eat and drink, but in doing right, in peace and joy through the Holy Spirit;

But the man who has misgivings about eating, if he then eats, has already condemned himself by so doing, because he did not follow his faith, and any action that does not follow one's faith is a sin.

Gaius, my host, and host of the whole church here, wishes to be remembered to you. Erastus, the treasurer of the city, wishes to be remembered to you, and so does our brother Quartus.