Then Festus, wishing to gratify the Jews, said to Paul, "Will you go up to Jerusalem and be tried there before me on these charges?"

But Paul said, "I am standing before the emperor's court, where I ought to be tried. I have done the Jews no wrong, as you can easily see.

and as they stayed there several days, Festus laid Paul's case before the king. "There is a man here," he said, "who was left in prison by Felix,

I was at a loss as to how to investigate such matters, and I asked him if he would like to go to Jerusalem and be tried on these charges there.

So the next day, Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp and went into the audience-room attended by officers and the leading citizens of the town, and at the command of Festus Paul was brought in.

the promise in the hope of seeing which fulfilled our twelve tribes serve God zealously night and day. It is about this hope, your Majesty, that I am accused by some Jews.

I was once going to Damascus on this business, authorized and commissioned by the high priests,

if the Christ was to suffer and by being the first to rise from the dead was to proclaim the light to our people and to the heathen."

"In a hurry or not," said Paul, "I would to God that not only you, but all who hear me today, might be what I am??xcept for these chains!"

The next day we put in at Sidon, and Julius kindly allowed Paul to go and see his friends and be taken care of.

But the officer was more influenced by the pilot and the captain than by what Paul had to say,

The ship was caught by it and could not face the wind, so we gave way and let her run before it.

The next day, as the storm continued to be violent, they began to throw the cargo overboard,

Even now, I beg you to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship.

and said, 'Do not be afraid, Paul! You must stand before the emperor, and see! God has given you the lives of all the people who are on the ship with you.'

So keep up your courage, gentlemen! For I have faith in God that it will be just as I was told.

But we are to be stranded on some island."

The sailors wanted to escape from the ship, and actually lowered the boat into the sea, pretending that they were going to run out anchors from the bow,

but Paul said to the officers and the soldiers, "You cannot be saved unless these men stay on board."

When daylight came they could not recognize the coast, but they saw a bay with a beach and determined to run the ship ashore there if possible.

But they struck a shoal and ran the ship aground. The bow struck and could not be moved, while the stern began to break up under the strain.

Publius' father happened to be sick in bed with fever and dysentery, and Paul went to see him and after praying laid his hands on him and cured him.

When we reached Rome, Paul was given permission to live by himself, with a soldier to guard him.

Some of them were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe.

and decisively declared Son of God in his holiness of spirit, by being raised from the dead??esus Christ our Lord,

including you who have been called to belong to Jesus Christ??7 to all those in Rome whom God loves, who are called to be his people; God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ bless you and give you peace.

and to ask that somehow by God's will I may some day at last succeed in reaching you.

in other words, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by one another's faith.

For all that can be known of God is clearly before them; God has shown it to them.

For he will pay every man for what he has done.

Those who by persistently doing right strive for glory, honor, and immortality will have eternal life,

but there will be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does right, the Jew first, and the Greek also,

All who sin without having the Law will perish without regard to the Law, and all who sin under the Law will be judged by the Law.

For merely hearing the Law read does not make a man upright in the sight of God; men must obey the Law to be made upright.

Will you boast of the Law and yet dishonor God by breaking it?

Circumcision will help you only if you observe the Law; but if you are a lawbreaker, you might as well be uncircumcised.

So if people who are uncircumcised observe the requirements of the Law, will they not be treated as though they were circumcised?

By no means! God must prove true, though every man be false; as the Scripture says, "That you may be shown to be upright in what you say, And win your case when you go into court."

By no means, for then how could he judge the world?

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!

Now we know that everything the Law says is addressed to those under its authority, so that every mouth may be shut, and the whole world be made accountable to God.

For no human being can be made upright in the sight of God by observing the Law. All that the Law can do is to make man conscious of sin.

but by his mercy they are made upright for nothing, by the deliverance secured through Christ Jesus.

For God showed him publicly dying as a sacrifice of reconciliation to be taken advantage of through faith. This was to vindicate his own justice (for in his forbearance, God passed over men's former sins)??26 to vindicate his justice at the present time, and show that he is upright himself, and that he makes those who have faith in Jesus upright also.

For we hold that a man is made upright by faith; the observance of the Law has nothing to do with it.

For if he was made upright by what he did, it is something to be proud of. But not to be proud of before God,

and he was afterward given the mark of circumcision as the stamp of God's acknowledgment of the uprightness based on faith that was his before he was circumcised, so that he should be the forefather of all who, without being circumcised, have faith and so are credited with uprightness,

Abraham, hoping against hope, had faith, and so became the father of many nations, in fulfilment of the Scripture, "So countless shall your descendants be."

but also on ours, for it is to be credited also to us who have faith in him who raised from the dead our Lord Jesus,

So as we have been made upright by faith, let us live in peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

by whom we have been introduced through faith to the favor of God that we now enjoy, and let us glory in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

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.

But God proves his love for us by the fact that Christ died for us when we were still sinners.

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!

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!

For if we have grown into union with him by undergoing a death like his, of course we shall do so by being raised to life like him,

for we know that our old self was crucified with him, to do away with our sinful body, so that we might not be enslaved to sin any longer,

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, the marriage law no longer applies to her.

For when we were living mere physical lives the sinful passions, awakened by the Law, operated through the organs of our bodies to make us bear fruit for death.

Did what was good, then, prove the death of me? Certainly not! It was sin that did so, so that it might be recognized as sin, because even through something that was good it effected my death, so that through the command it might appear how immeasurably sinful sin was.

I find the law to be that I who want to do right am dogged by what is wrong.

For though it was impossible for the Law to do it, hampered as it was by our physical limitations, God, by sending his own Son in our sinful physical form, as a sin-offering, put his condemnation upon sin through his physical nature,

so that the requirement of the Law might be fully met in our case, since we live not on the physical but on the spiritual plane.

People who are controlled by the physical think of what is physical, and people who are controlled by the spiritual think of what is spiritual.

For to be physically minded means death, but to be spiritually minded means life and peace.

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

for if you live under the control of the physical you will die, but if, by means of the Spirit, you put the body's doings to death, you will live.

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

For I consider what we suffer now not to be compared with the glory that is to burst upon us.

For creation is waiting with eager longing for the sons of God to be disclosed.

For it was not the fault of creation that it was frustrated; it was by the will of him who condemned it to that, and in the hope

that creation itself would be set free from its bondage to decay, and have the glorious freedom of the children of God.

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.

It was in this hope that we were saved. But a hope that can be seen is not a hope, for who hopes for what he sees?

For those whom he had marked out from the first he predestined to be made like his Son, so that he should be the eldest of many brothers;

Then what shall we conclude from this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

As the Scripture says, "For your sake we are being put to death all day long, We are treated like sheep to be slaughtered."

nor any supernatural forces either of height or depth will be able to separate us from the love God has shown in Christ Jesus our Lord!

and the patriarchs, and from them physically Christ came??od who is over all be blessed forever! Amen.

nor are they all children of Abraham because they are descended from him, but he was told, "The line of Isaac will be called your descendants."

she was told, "The elder will be the younger's slave."

What do we conclude? That God is guilty of injustice? By no means.

And in the very place where they were told, 'You are no people of mine,' They shall be called sons of the living God."

And Isaiah cries out about Israel, "Although the sons of Israel are as numerous as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,

Then what do we conclude? That heathen who were not striving for uprightness attained it, that is, an uprightness which was produced by faith;

as the Scripture says, "See, I will put a stone on Zion to make people stumble, and a rock to trip over, But no one who has faith in it will be disappointed."

Brothers, my heart is full of good will toward them; my prayer to God is that they may be saved.

For if with your lips you acknowledge the message that Jesus is Lord, and with your mind you believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For the Scripture says, "No one who has faith in him will be disappointed."

For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Then Isaiah broke out boldly and said, "I have been found by men who were not looking for me, I have shown myself to men who were not asking what my will was."

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.

So too at the present time there is a remnant selected by God's mercy.

But if it is by his mercy, it is not for anything they have done. Otherwise, his mercy would not be mercy at all.

Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see; Make their backs bend forever under their burden!"

I ask then, has their stumbling led to their absolute ruin? By no means. Through their false step salvation has gone to the heathen, so as to make the Israelites jealous.

"But," you will say, "branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in!"

That is true; but it was for their want of faith that they were broken off, and it is through your faith that you stand where you do. You ought not to feel proud; you ought to be afraid,

Observe then the goodness and the severity of God??everity to those who have fallen, but goodness to you, provided you abide by his goodness, for otherwise, you in your turn will be pruned away.