Furthermore, I want you to know, brothers, that I have often planned to come to see you (though until now I have been prevented), in order that I may gather some fruit among you too, as I have among the rest of the heathen.

Indeed, I do not understand what I do, for I do not practice what I want to do, but I am always doing what I hate.

But if I am always doing what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is right.

Indeed, I do not do the good things that I want to do, but I do practice the evil things that I do not want to do.

But if I do the things that I do not want to do, it is really not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me.

So I find this law: When I want to do right, the wrong is always in my way.

For to keep you from being self-conceited, brothers, I do not want to have a misunderstanding of this uncovered secret, that only temporary insensibility has come upon Israel until the full quota of the heathen peoples comes in,

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.

Yes, your obedience has been told to everybody; so I am delighted about you, but I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is bad.