That is why God has abandoned them to degrading passions. Their women have exchanged their natural function for one that is unnatural,

train the foolish, teach the young, since you have knowledge and truth formulated in the Law??21 why, then, will you teach others and refuse to teach yourself? Will you preach against stealing, and yet steal yourself?

But, you say, if a falsehood of mine has brought great honor to God by bringing out his truthfulness, why am I tried for being a sinner?

And why not say, as people abuse us for saying and charge us with saying, "Let us do evil that good may come out of it"? Such people will be condemned as they deserve!

That is why it all turns upon faith; it is to make it a matter of God's favor, so that the promise may hold good for all Abraham's descendants, not only those who are adherents of the Law, but also those who share the faith of Abraham. For he is the father of all of us;

That was why it was credited to him as uprightness.

Why, a man will hardly give his life for an upright person, though perhaps for a really good man some may be brave enough to die.

What good did you get from doing the things you are now ashamed of? Why, they result in death!

"Why, then," you will ask, "does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?"

On the contrary, who are you, my friend, to answer back to God? Can something a man shapes say to the man who shaped it, "Why did you make me like this?"

And why? Because they did not seek it through faith, but through doing certain things. They stumbled over that stone that makes people stumble,

But I ask again, did Israel fail to understand? Why, to begin with, Moses said, "I will make you jealous of what is no nation at all, I will exasperate you at a senseless nation."

I ask then, has God repudiated his people? By no means. Why, I am an Israelite myself, I am descended from Abraham, and I belong to the tribe of Benjamin.

This is why I have so often been prevented from coming to see you.