First of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because the report of your faith is over all the world.

whom God put forward as the means of propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to demonstrate the justice of God in view of the fact that sins previously committed during the time of God's forbearance had been passed over;

Nevertheless, from Adam to Moses death reigned even over those whose sins were not like Adam's transgression. Adam prefigured Him who was to come,

for we know that Christ never dies after his resurrection from the dead ??death has no more hold over him;

Sin is not to reign, then, over your mortal bodies and make you obey their passions;

Sin must have no hold over you, for you live under grace, not under law.

Surely you know, my brothers ??for I am speaking to men who know what law means ??that the law has hold over a person only during his lifetime!

the patriarchs are theirs, and theirs too (so far as natural descent goes) is the Christ. (Blessed for evermore be the God who is over all! Amen.)

Why, scripture says to Pharaoh, It was for this that I raised you up, to display my power in you, and to spread news of my name over all the earth.

What! has the potter no right over the clay? Has he no right to make out of the same lump one vessel for a noble purpose and another for a menial?

And why? Simply because Israel has relied not on faith but on what they could do. They have stumbled over the stone that makes men stumble ??33 as it is written, Here I lay a stone in Sion that will make men stumble, even a rock to trip them up; but he who believes in Him will never be disappointed.

But, I ask, "Have they never heard?" Indeed they have. Their voice carried over all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Then, I ask, "Did Israel not understand?" Why, first of all Moses declares, I will make you jealous of a nation that is no nation, I will provoke you to anger over a nation devoid of understanding.

To prevent you from being self-conceited, brothers, I would like you to understand this secret: it is only a partial insensibility that has come over Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in.

Everyone has heard of your loyalty to the gospel; it makes me rejoice over you. Still, I want you to be experts in good and innocents in evil.