For the report of your obedience has reached to all; therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.

but as it is written, "To whom the tidings concerning him have not reached, they shall see, and they who have not heard, shall understand."

But to Israel he says, All day long have I reached forth my hands to a gainsaying and disobedient people.

And Israel following the law of justice, reached not the law of justice.

But I ask, "Did not they [i.e., the Jews] hear [the message]?" Certainly they did! [Psa. 19:4 says], "The sound [of their preaching] went out into all the world, and their message reached to the ends of the earth."

I ask then--'Was their stumbling to result in their fall?' Heaven forbid! On the contrary, through their falling away Salvation has reached the Gentiles, to stir the rivalry of Israel.

This I say, because you know the crisis that we have reached, for the time has already come for you to rouse yourselves from sleep; our Salvation is nearer now than when we accepted the Faith.

Therefore, you should not brag [about your superiority] over the [natural] branches [i.e., the rejected Jews]. But, if you must brag, it should not be over you [Gentiles] nourishing the roots [i.e., the Jews], but over the roots nourishing you.

Let every soul be subject to the powers that are over them: for there is no such power but from God: the powers that are over men, are appointed by God.