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 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.

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.

For the civil authorities are God's servants to do you good. But if you practice doing wrong, you should dread them, for they do not wield the sword for nothing. Indeed, they are God's servants to inflict punishment upon people who do wrong.

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

But the man who has misgivings about eating, if he then eats, has already condemned himself by so doing, because he did not follow his faith, and any action that does not follow one's faith is a sin.

And you, who pose as a judge of those who practice such sins and yet continue doing the same yourself, do you for once suppose that you are going to escape the judgment of God?

Do you not know that when you habitually offer yourselves to anyone for obedience to him, you are slaves to that one whom you are in the habit of obeying, whether it is the slavery to sin whose end is death or to obedience whose end is right-doing?

What benefit did you then derive from doing the things of which you are now ashamed? None, for they end in death.

For the kingdom of God does not consist in what we eat and drink, but in doing right, in peace and joy through the Holy Spirit;