For ever since the creation of the universe God's invisible attributes-his everlasting power and divinity-are to be seen and studied in his works, so that men have no excuse;

All who, when they sin, are without Law will also perish without Law; while all who, when they sin, are under Law, will be judged as being under Law.

What follows, then? Are we Jews in any way superior to others? Not at all. Our indictment against both Jews and Greeks was that all alike were in subjection to sin.

For 'no human being will be pronounced righteous before God' as the result of obedience to Law; for it is Law that shows what sin is.

Not after, but before. And it was as a sign of this that he received the rite of circumcision-to attest the righteousness due to the faith of an uncircumcised man-in order that he might be the father of all who have faith in God even when uncircumcised, that they also may be regarded by God as righteous;

For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, much more, now that we have become reconciled, shall we be saved by virtue of Christ's Life.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and through sin came death; so, also, death spread to all mankind, because all men had sinned.

Even before the time of the Law there was sin in the world; but sin cannot be charged against a man where no Law exists.

Yet, from Adam to Moses, Death reigned even over those whose sin was not a breach of a law, as Adam's was. And Adam foreshadows the One to come.

There is a contrast, too, between the gift and the results of the one man's sin. The judgment, which followed upon the one man's sin, resulted in condemnation, but God's gracious Gift, which followed upon many offences, resulted in a decree of righteousness.

In order than, just as Sin had reigned in the realm of Death, so, too, might Loving-kindness reign through righteousness, and result in Immortal Life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

What are we to say, then? Are we to continue to sin, in order that God's loving-kindness may be multiplied?

Heaven forbid! We became dead to sin, and how can we go on living in it?

We recognize the truth that our old self was crucified with Christ, in order that the body, the stronghold of Sin, might be rendered powerless, so that we should no longer be slaves to Sin.

For the man who has so died has been pronounced righteous and released from Sin.

For the death that he died was a death to sin, once and for all. But the Life that he now lives, he lives for God.

So let it be with you-regard yourselves as dead to sin, but as living for God, through union with Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let Sin reign in your mortal bodies and compel you to obey its cravings.

Do not offer any part of your bodies to Sin, in the cause of unrighteousness, but once for all offer yourselves to God (as those who, though once dead, now have Life), and devote every part of your bodies to the cause of righteousness.

For Sin shall not lord it over you. You are living under the reign, not of Law, but of Love.

What follows, then? Are we to sin because we are living under the reign of Love and not of Law? Heaven forbid!

Surely you know that, when you offer yourselves as servants, to obey any one, you are the servants of the person whom you obey, whether the service be that of Sin which leads to Death, or that of Duty which leads to Righteousness.

God be thanked that, though you were once servants of Sin, yet you learned to give hearty obedience to that form of doctrine under which you were placed.

Set free from the control of Sin, you became servants to Righteousness.

While you were still servants of Sin, you were free as regards Righteousness.

But now that you have been set free from the control of Sin, and have become servants to God, the fruit that you reap is an ever-increasing holiness, and the end Immortal Life.

The wages of Sin are Death, but the gift of God is Immortal Life, through union with Christ Jesus, our Lord.

What are we to say, then? That Law and sin are the same thing? Heaven forbid! On the contrary, I should not have learned what sin is, had not it been for Law. If the Law did not say 'Thou shalt not covet,' I should not know what it is to covet.

But sin took advantage of the Commandment to arouse in me every form of covetousness, for where there is no consciousness of Law sin shows no sign of life.

There was a time when I myself, unconscious of Law, was alive; but when the Commandment was brought home to me, sin sprang into life, while I died!

Sin took advantage of the Commandment to deceive me, and used it to bring about my Death.

Did, then, a thing, which in itself was good, involve Death in my case? Heaven forbid! It was sin that involved Death; so that, by its use of what I regarded as good to bring about my Death, its true nature might appear; and in this way the Commandment showed how intensely sinful sin is.

We know that the Law is spiritual, but I am earthly-sold into slavery to Sin.

This being so, the action is no longer my own, but that of Sin which is within me.

But, when I do the very thing that I want not to do, the action is no longer my own, but that of Sin which is within me.

But throughout my body I see a different law, one which is in conflict with the law accepted by my reason, and which endeavors to make me a prisoner to that law of Sin which exists throughout my body.

Thank God, there is deliverance through Jesus Christ, our Lord! Well then, for myself, with my reason I serve the Law of God, but with my earthly nature the Law of Sin.

For through your union with Christ Jesus, the Law of the life- giving Spirit has set you free from the Law of Sin and Death.

What Law could not do, in so far as our earthly nature weakened its action, God did, by sending his own Son, with a nature resembling our sinful nature, to atone for sin. He condemned sin in that earthly nature,

But, if Christ is within you, then, though the body is dead as a consequence of sin, the spirit is Life as a consequence of righteousness.

For you did not receive the spirit of a slave, to fill you once more with fear, but the spirit of a son which leads us to cry 'Abba, Our Father.'

For those whom God chose from the first he also destined from the first to be transformed into likeness to his Son, so that his Son might be the eldest among many Brothers.

God did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up on behalf of us all; will he not, then, with him, freely give us all things?

For these words are the words of a promise-'About this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.'

As Scripture says-'See, I place a Stumbling-block in Zion-- a Rock which shall prove a hindrance; and he who believes in him shall have no cause for shame.'

And then all Israel shall be saved. As Scripture says--'From Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.

He, however, who has misgivings stands condemned if he still eats, because his doing so is not the result of faith. And anything not done as the result of faith is a sin.

Again, Isaiah says--'There shall be a Scion of the house of Jesse, One who is to arise to rule the Gentiles; on him shall the Gentiles rest their hopes.'

God will not fail you, and it is he who called you into communion with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Are you all so soon satisfied? Are you so soon rich? Have you begun to reign without us? Would indeed that you had, so that we also might reign with you!

But come to you I will, and that soon, if it please the Lord; and then I shall find out, not what words these men use who are so puffed up, but what power they possess;

Shun all immorality. Every other sin that men commit is something outside the body; but an immoral man sins against his own body.

In this way, by sinning against your Brothers and injuring their consciences, while still weak, you sin against Christ.

Am I not free? Am I not an Apostle? Have I not seen our Lord Jesus? Are not you yourselves my work achieved in union with the Lord?

Therefore the gift of the 'tongues' is intended as a sign, not for those who believe in Christ, but for those who do not, while the gift of preaching is intended as a sign, not for those who do not believe in Christ, but for those who do.

And, when everything has been placed under him, the Son will place himself under God who placed everything under him, that God may be all in all!

Awake to a righteous life, and cease to sin. There are some who have no true knowledge of God. I speak in this way to shame you.

There is a beauty of the sun, and a beauty of the moon, and a beauty of the stars; for even star differs from star in beauty.

It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. Sown a mortal body, it rises immortal; sown disfigured, it rises beautiful;

Sown weak, it rises strong; sown a human body, it rises a spiritual body.

It is sin that gives death its sting, and it is the Law that gives sin its power.

I will come to you as soon as I have been through Macedonia- -for I am going through Macedonia-

As for our Brother Apollos, I have often urged him to go to you with the others. He has, however, been very unwilling to do so as yet; but he will go as soon as he finds a good opportunity.

The Son of God, Christ Jesus, whom we--Silas, Timothy, and I- -proclaimed among you, never wavered between 'Yes' and 'No.' With him it has always been 'Yes.'

Indeed, the same God who said 'Out of darkness light shall shine,' has shone in upon our hearts, so that we should bring out into the light the knowledge of the glory of God, seen in the face of Christ.

This treasure we have in these earthen vessels, that its all- prevailing power may be seen to come from God, and not to be our own.

We, all the while, gazing not on what is seen, but on what is unseen; for what is seen is transient, but what is unseen is imperishable.

Him who never knew sin God made to be Sin, on our behalf; so that we, through union with him, might become the Righteousness of God.

We pray God that you may do nothing wrong, not that we may be seen to stand the test, but that you may do what is right, even though we may seem not to stand the test.

I am astonished at your so soon deserting him, who called you through the love of Christ, for a different 'Good News,'

Saw fit to reveal his Son in me, so that I might tell the Good News of him among the Gentiles, then at once, instead of consulting any human being,

If, while seeking to be pronounced righteous through union with Christ, we were ourselves seen to be outcasts, would that make Christ an agent of sin? Heaven forbid!

I have been crucified with Christ. So it is no longer I that live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and, as for my present earthly life, I am living it by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

But the words of Scripture represent the whole world as being in bondage to sin, so that the promised blessing, dependent, as it is, upon faith in Jesus Christ, may be given to those who have faith in him.

But, when the full time came, God sent his Son--born a woman's child, born subject to Law--

And it is because you are sons that God sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son, with the cry--'Abba, our Father.'

You, therefore, are no longer a slave, but a son; and, if a son, then an heir also, by God's appointment.

This story may be taken as an allegory. The women stand for two Covenants. One Covenant, given from Mount Sinai, produces a race of slaves and is represented by Hagar

(The word Hagar meaning in Arabia Mount Sinai) and it ranks with the Jerusalem of to-day, for she and her children are in slavery.

But what does the passage of Scripture say? 'Send away the slave-woman and her son; for the slave's son shall not be co-heir with the son of the free woman.'

Brothers, even if a man should be caught committing a sin, you who are spiritually minded should, in a gentle spirit, help him to recover himself, taking care lest any one of you also should be tempted.

For at one time you lived in sin, following the ways of the world, in subjection to the Ruler of the Powers of the air--the Spirit who is still at work among the disobedient.

And this shall continue, until we all attain to that unity which is given by faith and by a fuller knowledge of the Son of God; until we reach the ideal man--the full standard of the perfection of the Christ.

'Be angry, yet do not sin.' Do not let the sun go down upon your anger;

For the outcome of life in the Light may be seen in every form of goodness, righteousness, and sincerity--

Without ever shrinking from your opponents. To them this will be a sign of their Destruction and of your Salvation--a sign from God.

So as to prove yourselves blameless and innocent-- 'faultless children of God, in the midst of an evil-disposed and perverse generation,' in which you are seen shining like stars in a dark world,

It is Timothy, then, whom I hope to send, as soon as ever I can foresee how it will go with me.

For God has rescued us from the tyranny of Darkness, and has removed us into the Kingdom of his Son, who is the embodiment of his love,

I want you to know in how great a struggle I am engaged for you and for Christ's People at Laodicea, and for all who have not yet seen me;

And are now awaiting the return from Heaven of his Son whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, our deliverer from the Coming Wrath.

And it was not Adam who was deceived; it was the woman who was entirely deceived and fell into sin.

Yes, and confessedly wonderful are the deep truths of our religion; for-- 'He was revealed in our nature, pronounced righteous in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, taken up into glory.'

who alone is possessed of immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or ever can see--to whom be ascribed honour and power for ever. Amen.

now that I have been reminded of the sincere faith that you have shown. That faith was seen first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and is now, I am convinced, in you also.

Do your utmost to come to me soon;

As soon as I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, join me as quickly as possible at Nicopolis, for I have arranged to spend the winter there.

has in these latter days spoken to us by the Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.

For to which of the angels did God ever say-- 'Thou art my Son; this day I have become thy Father'? or again-- 'I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son'?

while of the Son he said-- 'God is thy throne for ever and ever; The scepter of his Kingdom is the scepter of Justice;