So if we are God's children we ought not to imagine that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, wrought by human art and thought.

The Spirit itself testifies with our spirits that we are God's children,

Dear friends, we are God's children now; it has not yet been disclosed what we are to be. We know that if he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

We are God's children. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not a child of God will not listen to us. In this way we can tell what is inspired by truth from what is inspired by error.

Think what love the Father has had for us, in letting us be called God's children, for that is what we are. This is why the world does not know what we are??ecause it has never come to know him.

We know that no child of God commits sin, but the fact that he is God's child protects him, and the evil one cannot touch him.

and hope will not disappoint us. For, through the holy Spirit that has been given us, God's love has flooded our hearts.

This is how we can be sure that we love the children of God: it is by loving God and obeying his commands.

If, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, it is far more certain that now that we are reconciled we shall be saved through sharing in his life!

We had just been through ill-treatment and insults at Philippi, as you remember, but, in the face of great opposition, we took courage by the help of our God, and told you God's good news.

More than that, we ourselves, though we have in the Spirit a foretaste of the future, groan to ourselves as we wait to be declared God's sons, through the redemption of our bodies.

For we are fellow-laborers for God, and you are God's farm, God's building.

From that we can be sure that we are on the side of the truth, and satisfy our consciences in God's sight,

With it we bless the Lord our Father, and with it we curse men made in God's likeness.

So if we have already been made upright by his death, it is far more certain that through him we shall be saved from God's anger!

We all lived among them once, indulging our physical cravings and obeying the impulses of our lower nature and its thoughts, and by nature we were doomed to God's wrath like other men.

We for our part constantly thank God for another reason too??ecause when you received God's message from our lips, you welcomed it not as the message of men but as the message of God, as it really is, which does its work in the hearts of you believers.

No one who is a child of God commits sin, for God's nature remains in his heart, and he cannot sin, because he is a child of God.

You are children of God, dear children, and you have been victorious over these men, for he who is in our hearts is greater than he who is in the world.

If we accept the testimony of men, the testimony of God is stronger still; for the value of God's testimony lies in this, that he has testified to his Son.

So the dragon was enraged at the woman, and he went off to make war on the rest of her children??hose who obey God's commands and adhere to the testimony of Jesus.

For before the children were born or had done anything either good or bad, in order to carry out God's purpose of selection, which depends not on what men do but on his calling them,

So follow God's example, like his dear children,

and have a good reputation for Christian service, such as bringing up children, being hospitable to strangers, washing the feet of God's people, helping people in distress, or devoting herself to any form of doing good.

That was the kind of affection we had for you, which made us ready to share with you not only God's good news but our own lives too, because you were so dear to us.

So let us come with courage to God's throne of grace to receive his forgiveness and find him responsive when we need his help.

So we know and believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever continues to love keeps in union with God, and God with him.

Now, brothers, we ask and entreat you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to live as you learned from us that you must live, to please God??s indeed you are doing, only do it more and more.

He made him who knew nothing of sin to be sin, for our sake, so that through union with him we might become God's uprightness.

Now the main point in what I am saying is this: We have such a high priest as this, and he has taken his seat in heaven at the right hand of God's Majesty,

And it is through his doing of God's will that we have been once for all purified from sin through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ in sacrifice.

For we who have believed are admitted to that Rest, of which he said, "As I made oath in my anger, They shall never be admitted to my Rest!" And yet God's work was finished at the creation of the world,

No being created can escape God's sight, but everything is bare and helpless before the eyes of him with whom we have to reckon.

No! This is what it says: "God's message is close to you, on your lips and in your mind"??hat is, the message about faith that we preach.

through whom we have received God's favor and been commissioned in his name to urge obedience and faith upon all the heathen,

We know that God's judgment rightfully falls upon those who do such things as these.

for what we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love you have for all God's people,

Then they said to him, "What must we do to carry out God's work?"

So I sent for you immediately, and you have very kindly come. Now we are all here in God's presence, to hear everything that the Lord has instructed you to say."

Then Paul and Barnabas spoke out plainly, and said, "God's message had to be told to you first, but since you thrust it off and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we now turn to the heathen.

God's love for us has been revealed in this way??hat God has sent his only Son into the world, to let us have life through him.

In his name let us continually offer praise as our sacrifice to God??he utterance of lips that glorify God's name.

For the time has come for the judgment to begin with the household of God, and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who refuse God's good news?

Faith made Abel's sacrifice greater in the sight of God than Cain's; through faith he gained God's approval as an upright man, for God himself approved his offering, and through faith even when he was dead he still spoke.

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;

"What do you want of us, Jesus, you Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, you are God's holy One!"

And the child grew up and became strong and thoughtful, with God's blessing resting on him.

"Ha! What do you want of us, Jesus, you Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are! You are God's Holy One!"

Paul, by God's will an apostle of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God that is at Corinth, and all God's people all over Greece;

He is the reflection of God's glory, and the representation of his being, and bears up the universe by his mighty word. He has effected man's purification from sin, and has taken his seat on high at the right hand of God's Majesty,

But there is no comparison between God's gift and that offense. For if one man's offense made the mass of mankind die, God's mercy and his gift given through the favor of the one man Jesus Christ have far more powerfully affected mankind.

but to those whom God has called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is God's power and God's wisdom.

They answered, "Our father is Abraham." Jesus said to them, "If you are Abraham's children, then do what Abraham did.

If those to whom God's message was addressed were called gods??nd the Scripture cannot be set aside??36 do you mean to say to me whom the Father has consecrated and made his messenger to the world, 'You are blasphemous,' because I said, 'I am God's Son'?

for they said to Aaron, 'Make us gods to march in front of us, for as for this Moses, who brought us out of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him!'

You renegades! Do you not know that the friendship of the world means enmity with God? So whoever wishes to be the world's friend declares himself God's enemy.

On this fact rests the endurance of God's people, who obey God's commands and cling to their faith in Jesus.

For all who are guided by God's Spirit are God's sons.

who can condemn them? Christ Jesus who died, or rather who was raised from the dead, is at God's right hand, and actually pleads for us.

For in their ignorance of God's way of uprightness and in the attempt to set up one of their own, they refused to conform to God's way of uprightness.

for they are God's agents to do you good. But if you do wrong you may well be afraid, for they do not carry swords for nothing. They are God's servants, to execute his wrath upon wrongdoers.

For since in God's providence the world with all its wisdom did not come to know God, God chose, through the folly of the gospel message, to save those who had faith in him.

For God's folly is beyond the wisdom of men, and God's weakness is beyond their strength.

Do you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit makes its home in you?

Paul, by God's will an apostle of Christ Jesus, to God's people who are steadfast in Christ Jesus;

the adversary of every being that is called a god or an object of worship, and so overbearing toward them as to enter God's sanctuary and take his seat there, proclaiming himself to be God??5 do you not remember that when I was with you, I used to tell you this?

try to keep us from speaking to the heathen so that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God's wrath has overtaken them at last!

He trusts in God; let God deliver him if he cares for him, for he said he was God's son."

For he whom God has sent speaks God's words, for God gives him his Spirit without measure.

Whoever is sprung from God listens to God's words. The reason you refuse to listen is that you are not sprung from God."

So he has been exalted to God's right hand, and has received from his Father and poured over us the holy Spirit that had been promised, as you see and hear.

But he, full of the holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw God's glory and Jesus standing at God's right hand.

For I am no peddler of God's message, like most men, but like a man of sincerity, commissioned by God and in his presence, in union with Christ I utter his message.

I disown disgraceful, underhanded ways. I refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's message. It is by the open statement of the truth that I would commend myself to every human conscience in the sight of God.

For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in my heart, to give me the light of the knowledge of God's glory, that is on the face of Christ.

For it is all for your benefit, in order that as God's favor reaches greater and greater numbers, it may result in more and more thanksgiving in praise of God.

As God's fellow-worker, I appeal to you, too, not to accept the favor of God and then waste it.

For the rendering of this service does more than supply the wants of God's people; it results in a wealth of thanksgiving to God.

But by God's favor I have become what I am, and the favor he showed me has not gone for nothing, but I have worked harder than any of them, although it was not really I but the favor God showed me.

How much worse a punishment do you think will anyone deserve who tramples the Son of God underfoot, and treats as worthless the blood of the agreement by which he has been purified, and outrages God's spirit of mercy?

to the solemn gathering of all God's elder sons, enrolled as citizens in heaven, to a judge who is the God of all, to the spirits of upright men now at last enjoying the fulfilment of their hopes,

For all who are admitted to God's Rest rest after their work, just as God did after his.

and so the Scripture came true that says, "Abraham had faith in God, and it was credited to him as uprightness, and he was called God's friend."

For God approves a man if from a sense of duty he endures suffering unjustly inflicted??20 for what credit is there in your enduring being beaten for doing wrong? But if you endure suffering for doing what is right, you have God's approval.

Whatever the endowment God has given you, use it in service to one another, like good dispensers of God's varied mercy.

For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by having a common purpose and giving up their authority to the animal until God's decrees are carried out.

I heard a loud voice from the throne say, "See! God's dwelling is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them,

He did not incredulously question God's promise, but his faith gave him power and he praised God

Thank God! it is done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So mentally I am a slave to God's law, but physically to the law of sin.

For to be physically minded means hostility to God, for it refuses to obey God's law, indeed it cannot obey it.

From the point of view of the good news they are treated as enemies of God on your account; but from the point of view of God's choice, they are dear to him because of their forefathers,

to the church of God at Corinth, to those who are consecrated by union with Christ Jesus, and called as God's people, like all those anywhere who call on the name of Jesus Christ, their Lord as well as ours;

At that time you had no connection with Christ, you were aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the agreements about God's promise; with no hope and no God in all the world.

This is a proof of God's justice in judging, and it is to prove you worthy of the Kingdom of God, for the sake of which you are suffering,

But if I am driving the demons out by the aid of God's Spirit, then the Kingdom of God has overtaken you.

and screamed out, "What do you want of me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? In God's name, I implore you, do not torture me."

and you have forgotten the challenge addressed to you as God's sons, "My son, do not think lightly of the Lord's discipline, Or give up when he corrects you.

So the angel swung his sickle on the earth and gathered the fruit of the earth's vine, and flung them into the great winepress of God's wrath.