Furthermore, because they did not think it worthwhile to keep knowing God fully, God delivered them to degraded minds to perform acts that should not be done.

For he will repay everyone according to what that person has done:

They don't fear God.

As it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations." Abraham acted in faith when he stood in the presence of God, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that don't yet exist.

Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into union with the Messiah Jesus were baptized into his death?

Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Don't you realize, brothers for I am speaking to people who know the Law that the Law can press its claims over a person only as long as he is alive?

I don't understand what I am doing. For I don't practice what I want to do, but instead do what I hate.

Now if I practice what I don't want to do, I am admitting that the Law is good.

For I don't do the good I want to do, but instead do the evil that I don't want to do.

But if I do what I don't want to do, I am no longer the one who is doing it, but it is the sin that is living in me.

Yet before their children had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God's plan of election might continue to operate

But the righteousness that comes from faith says, "Do not say in your heart, "Who will go up to heaven?' (that is, to bring the Messiah down),

or "Who will go down into the depths?' (that is, to bring the Messiah back from the dead)."

But the person who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not act in faith; and anything that is not done in faith is sin.

My one ambition is to proclaim the gospel where the name of the Messiah is not known, so I don't build on someone else's foundation.