For I am longing to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong,

Now that we have been justified by his blood, how much more will we be saved from wrath through him!

For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life!

But God's free gift is not like Adam's offense. For if many people died as the result of one man's offense, how much more have God's grace and the free gift given through the kindness of one man, Jesus the Messiah, been showered on many people!

For if, through one man, death ruled because of that man's offense, how much more will those who receive such overflowing grace and the gift of righteousness rule in life because of one man, Jesus the Messiah!

And if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then the one who raised the Messiah from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive by his Spirit who lives in you.

On the contrary, who are you mere man that you are to talk back to God? Can an object that was molded say to the one who molded it, "Why did you make me like this?"

A potter has the right to do what he wants to with his clay, doesn't he? He can make something for a special occasion or something for ordinary use from the same lump of clay.

As it is written, "Look! I am placing a stone in Zion over which people will stumble a large rock that will make them fall and the one who believes in him will never be ashamed."

Again I ask, "Did Israel not understand?" Moses was the first to say, "I will make you jealous by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that doesn't understand."

And so I ask, "They have not stumbled so as to fall, have they?" Of course not! On the contrary, because of their stumbling, salvation has come to the gentiles to make the Jews jealous.

Now if their stumbling means riches for the world, and if their fall means riches for the gentiles, how much more will their full participation mean!

in the hope that I can make my people jealous and save some of them.

After all, if you were cut off from what is naturally a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much easier it will be for these natural branches to be grafted back into their own olive tree!

Therefore, let's no longer criticize each other. Instead, make up your mind not to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.

Do not destroy God's action for the sake of food. Everything is clean, but it is wrong to make another person stumble because of what you eat.