And this proves that faith comes from a Message heard, and that the Message comes through its having been spoken by Christ.

Moreover, if they turn from their unbelief, they too will be grafted in. For God is powerful enough to graft them in again;

and if you were cut from that which by nature is a wild olive and contrary to nature were grafted into the good olive tree, how much more certainly will these natural branches be grafted on their own olive tree?

and so all Israel will be saved. As is declared in Scripture, "From Mount Zion a Deliverer will come: He will remove all ungodliness from Jacob;

so collectively we form one body in Christ, while individually we are linked to one another as its members.

Carry out these injunctions because you know the critical period at which we are living, and that it is now high time, to rouse yourselves from sleep; for salvation is now nearer to us than when we first became believers.

Let not him who eats certain food look down upon him who abstains from it, nor him who abstains from it find fault with him who eats it; for God has received both of them.

He who regards the day as sacred, so regards it for the Master's sake; and he who eats certain food eats it for the Master's sake, for he gives thanks to God; and he who refrains from eating it refrains for the Master's sake, and he also gives thanks to God.

But as to you, brethren, I am convinced-- yes, I Paul am convinced--that, even apart from my teaching, you are already full of goodness of heart, and enriched with complete Christian knowledge, and are also competent to instruct one another.

and I know that when I come to you it will be with a vast amount of blessing from Christ.

asking that I may escape unhurt from those in Judaea who are disobedient, and that the service which I am going to Jerusalem to render may be well received by the Church there,

May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

who will also keep you stedfast to the very End, so that you will be free from reproach on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

to prevent any mortal man from boasting in the presence of God.

But you--and it is all God's doing--are in Christ Jesus: He has become for us a wisdom which is from God, consisting of righteousness and sanctification and deliverance;

But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which comes forth from God, that we may know the blessings that have been so freely given to us by God.

Therefore form no premature judgements, but wait until the Lord returns. He will both bring to light the secrets of darkness and will openly disclose the motives that have been in people's hearts; and then the praise which each man deserves will come to him from God.

And you, instead of mourning and removing from among you the man who has done this deed of shame, are filled with self-complacency!

Get rid of the old yeast so that you may be dough of a new kind; for in fact you *are* free from corruption. For our Passover Lamb has already been offered in sacrifice--even Christ.

Therefore let us keep our festival not with old yeast nor with the yeast of what is evil and mischievous, but with bread free from yeast--the bread of transparent sincerity and of truth.

not that in this world you are to keep wholly aloof from such as they, any more than from people who are avaricious and greedy of gain, or from worshippers of idols. For that would mean that you would be compelled to go out of the world altogether.

while you leave to God's judgement those who are outside? Remove the wicked man from among you.

And all this describes what some of you were. But now you have had every stain washed off: now you have been set apart as holy: now you have been pronounced free from guilt; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.

Flee from fornication. Any other sin that a human being commits lies outside the body; but he who commits fornication sins against his own body.

Or do you not know that your bodies are a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is within you--the Spirit whom you have from God?

I now deal with the subjects mentioned in your letter. It is well for a man to abstain altogether from marriage.

Yet I would that everybody lived as I do; but each of us has his own special gift from God--one in one direction and one in another.

And a woman who has an unbelieving husband--if he consents to live with her, let her not separate from him.

Concerning unmarried women I have no command to give you from the Lord; but I offer you my opinion, which is that of a man who, through the Lord's mercy, is deserving of your confidence.

Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to get free. Are you free from the marriage bond? Do not seek for a wife.

And I would have you free from worldly anxiety. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord's business--how he shall please the Lord;

But if a father stands firm in his resolve, being free from all external constraint and having a legal right to act as he pleases, and in his own mind has come to the decision to keep his daughter unmarried, he will do well.

But all believers do not recognize these facts. Some, from force of habit in relation to the idol, even now eat idol sacrifices as such, and their consciences, being but weak, are polluted.

It is true that a particular kind of food will not bring us into God's presence; we are neither inferior to others if we abstain from it, nor superior to them if we eat it.

If it is we who sowed the spiritual grain in you, is it a great thing that we should reap a temporal harvest from you?

Do you not know that those who perform the sacred rites have their food from the sacred place, and that those who serve at the altar all alike share with the altar?

Though free from all human control, I have made myself the slave of all in the hope of winning as many converts as possible.

and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they long drank the water that flowed from the spiritual rock that went with them--and that rock was the Christ.

But if any one tells you, "This food has been offered in sacrifice;" abstain from eating it--out of respect for him who warned you, and, as before, for conscience' sake.

Man does not take his origin from woman, but woman takes hers from man.

For just as woman originates from man, so also man comes into existence through woman, but everything springs originally from God.

For it was from the Lord that I received the facts which, in turn, I handed on to you; how that the Lord Jesus, on the night He was to be betrayed, took some bread,

For every time that you eat this bread and drink from the cup, you are proclaiming the Lord's death--until He returns.

Whoever, therefore, in an unworthy manner, eats the bread or drinks from the cup of the Lord sins against the body and blood of the Lord.

But let a man examine himself, and, having done that, then let him eat the bread and drink from the cup.

But when we are judged by the Lord, chastisement follows, to save us from being condemned along with the world.

For, in fact, in one Spirit all of us--whether we are Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free men--were baptized to form but one body; and we were all nourished by that one Spirit.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, felt like a child, reasoned like a child: when I became a man, I put from me childish ways.

But, brethren, as things are, if I come to you speaking in 'tongues,' what benefit shall I confer on you, if the utterance is neither in the form of a revelation nor of additional knowledge nor of prophecy nor of teaching?

Was it from you that God's Message first went forth, or is it to you only that it has come?

through which also you are obtaining salvation, if you bear in mind the words in which I proclaimed it--unless indeed your faith has been unreal from the very first.

But if Christ is preached as having risen from the dead, how is it that some of you say that there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead?

But, in reality, Christ *has* risen from among the dead, being the first to do so of those who are asleep.

If from merely human motives I have fought with wild beasts in Ephesus, what profit is it to me? If the dead do not rise, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we are to die.

Wake from this drunken fit; live righteous lives, and cease to sin; for some have no knowledge of God: I speak thus in order to move you to shame.

There is one glory of the sun, another of the moon, and another of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in a state of decay, it is raised free from decay;

The first man is a man of earth, earthy; the second man is from Heaven.

Now sin is the sting of death, and sin derives its power from the Law;

Therefore, my dear brethren, be firm, unmovable, busily occupied at all times in the Lord's work, knowing that your toil is not fruitless in the Lord.

If Timothy pays you a visit, see that he is free from fear in his relations with you; for he is engaged in the Master's work just as I am.

Be on the alert; stand firm in the faith; acquit yourselves like men; be strong.

Let all that you do be done from motives of love.

May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

He it is who rescued us from so imminent a death, and will do so again; and we have a firm hope in Him that He will also rescue us in all the future,

while you on your part lend us your aid in entreaty for us, so that from many lips thanksgivings may rise on our behalf for the boon granted to us at the intercession of many.

For we are writing to you nothing different from what we have written before, or from what indeed you already recognize as truth and will, I trust, recognize as such to the very end;

and to pass by way of Corinth into Macedonia. Then my plan was to return from Macedonia to you, and be helped forward by you to Judaea.

Did I display any vacillation or caprice in this? Or the purposes which I form--do I form them on worldly principles, now crying "Yes, yes," and now "No, no"?

Not that we want to lord it over you in respect of your faith--we do, however, desire to help your joy--for in the matter of your faith you are standing firm.

And I write this to you in order that when I come I may not receive pain from those who ought to give me joy, confident as I am as to all of you that my joy is the joy of you all.

Do you say that this is self-recommendation once more? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you?

not that of ourselves we are competent to decide anything by our own reasonings, but our competency comes from God.

who used to throw a veil over his face to hide from the gaze of the children of Israel the passing away of what was but transitory.

And all of us, with unveiled faces, reflecting like bright mirrors the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same likeness, from one degree of radiant holiness to another, even as derived from the Lord the Spirit.

For we know that He who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will raise us also to be with Jesus, and will cause both us and you to stand in His own presence.

For in this one we sigh, because we long to put on over it our dwelling which comes from Heaven--

We have therefore a cheerful confidence. We know that while we are at home in the body we are banished from the Lord;

So we have a cheerful confidence, and we anticipate with greater delight being banished from the body and going home to the Lord.

And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and has appointed us to serve in the ministry of reconciliation.

Therefore, "'Come out from among them and separate yourselves,' says the Lord, 'and touch nothing impure; and I will receive you, and will be a Father to you,

Having therefore these promises, beloved friends, let us purify ourselves from all defilement of body and of spirit, and secure perfect holiness through the fear of God.

Now I rejoice, not in your grief, but because the grief led to repentance; for you sorrowed with a godly sorrow, which prevented you from receiving injury from us in any respect.

For mark the effects of this very thing--your having sorrowed with a godly sorrow--what earnestness it has called forth in you, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing affection, what jealousy, what meting out of justice! You have completely wiped away reproach from yourselves in the matter.

With earnest entreaty they begged from us the favour of being allowed to share in the service now being rendered to God's people.

As for Titus, remember that he is a partner with me, and is my comrade in my labours for you. And as for our brethren, remember that they are delegates from the Churches, and are men in whom Christ is glorified.

I have thought it absolutely necessary therefore to request these brethren to visit you before I myself come, and to make sure beforehand that the gift of love which you have already promised may be ready as a gift of love, and may not seem to have been something which I have extorted from you.

But I am afraid that, as the serpent in his craftiness deceived Eve, so your minds may be led astray from their single-heartedness and their fidelity to Christ.

If indeed some visitor is proclaiming among you another Jesus whom we did not proclaim, or if you are receiving a Spirit different from the One you have already received or a Good News different from that which you have already welcomed, your toleration is admirable!

Other Churches I robbed, receiving pay from them in order to do you service.

And when I was with you and my resources failed, there was no one to whom I became a burden--for the brethren when they came from Macedonia fully supplied my wants--and I kept myself from being in the least a burden to you, and will do so still.

Christ knows that it is true when I say that I will not be stopped from boasting of this anywhere in Greece.

But I will persist in the same line of conduct in order to cut the ground from under the feet of those who desire an opportunity of getting themselves recognized as being on a level with us in the matters about which they boast.

From the Jews I five times have received forty lashes all but one.

I have served Him by frequent travelling, amid dangers in crossing rivers, dangers from robbers; dangers from my own countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles; dangers in the city, dangers in the Desert, dangers by sea, dangers from spies in our midst;

And I know that this man-- whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know;

If however I should choose to boast, I should not be a fool for so doing, for I should be speaking the truth. But I forbear, lest any one should be led to estimate me more highly than what his own eyes attest, or more highly than what he hears from my lips.

Paul, an Apostle sent not from men nor by any man, but by Jesus Christ and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from among the dead--

May grace and peace be granted to you from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,

who gave Himself to suffer for our sins in order to rescue us from the present wicked age in accordance with the will of our God and Father.