As the Scripture says, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated."

For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on any man that I choose to have mercy on, and take pity on any man that I choose to take pity on."

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "I have raised you to your position for this very purpose of displaying my power in dealing with you, of announcing my name all over the earth."

As Isaiah again has foretold, "Unless the Lord of hosts had left us some descendants, we would have fared as Sodom did and would have been like Gomorrah."

What are we then to conclude? That heathen peoples who were not in search for right standing with God have obtained it, and that a right standing conditioned on faith;

Why? Because they did not try through faith but through what they could do. They have stumbled over the stone that causes people to stumble,

But how can people call upon One in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in One about whom they have not heard? And how can people hear without someone to preach to them?

However, they have not all given heed to the good news, for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has put faith in what we told?"

But may I ask, They had no chance to hear, did they? Yes, indeed: "All over the earth their voices have gone, to the ends of the world their words."

Then Isaiah was bold enough to say: "I have been found by a people who were not searching for me; I have made known myself to people who were not asking to know me."

But of Israel he said: "All day long I have held out my hands to a people that is disobedient and obstinate."

"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone have been left, and they are trying to kill me."

But how did God reply to him? "I have reserved for myself seven thousand men who have never bent their knees to Baal."

But if it is by His unmerited favor, it is not at all conditioned on what they have done. If that were so, His favor would not be favor at all.

What are we then to conclude? Israel has failed to obtain what it is still in search for, but His chosen ones have obtained it. The rest have become insensible to it,

If some of the branches have been broken off, and yet you, although you were wild olive suckers, have been grafted in among the native branches, and been made to share the rich sap of the native olive's root,

Then you will say, "Branches have been broken off for us to be grafted in."

So take a look at the goodness and the severity of God; severity to those who have fallen, but goodness to you, on condition that you continue to live by His goodness; otherwise, you too will be pruned away.

For to keep you from being self-conceited, brothers, I do not want to have a misunderstanding of this uncovered secret, that only temporary insensibility has come upon Israel until the full quota of the heathen peoples comes in,

For just as you once disobeyed God, but now have had mercy shown you because of their disobedience,

so they too are now disobedient because of the mercy shown you, that they too may now have mercy shown them.

For God has locked up all mankind in the prison of disobedience so as to have mercy on them all.

Or who has ever advanced God anything to have Him pay him back?

For just as we have many parts united in our physical bodies, and the parts do not all have the same function,

As we have gifts that differ in accordance with the favor God has shown us, if it is that of preaching, let it be done in proportion to our faith;

Everybody must obey the civil authorities that are over him, for no authority exists except by God's permission; the existing authorities have been established by Him,

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 commandments, "You must not commit adultery; you must not murder; you must not steal; you must not have an evil desire," and any other commandment if there is any, are summed up in this command, "You must love your neighbor as you do yourself."

I know, and through my union with the Lord Jesus I have a clear conviction, that nothing is unclean in itself; that a thing is unclean only to the person who thinks it unclean.

Christ certainly did not please Himself; instead, as the Scripture says, "The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen upon me."

And yet, to refresh your memories, I have written you rather freely on some details, because of the unmerited favor shown me by God

in making me a minister of Christ Jesus to the heathen peoples, to have me act as a sacrificing minister of the good news, in order that my offering of the heathen peoples to God may be acceptable, consecrated by the Holy Spirit.

So, as a Christian, I am proud of the things that I have done for God.

by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit. So I have completed the telling of the good news of Christ all the way from Jerusalem around to Illyricum.

but, as the Scripture says: "They will see who were never told of Him, and they will understand who have not heard."

This is the reason why I have so often been prevented from coming to see you.

But now, as there are no more places for me to occupy in this part of the world, and as I have for many years been longing to come to see you,

when I make my trip to Spain, I certainly hope to see you on my way there and to be helped forward by you, after I have enjoyed being with you awhile.

They certainly were delighted to do it, and they really are under obligation to them, for if the heathen peoples have shared in their spiritual blessings, they ought to serve them in material blessings.

So, after I have finished this matter and made sure of the results of this contribution for them, I shall come by you on my way to Spain.

so that, if it is God's will, I may come with a happy heart to see you and have a refreshing rest while with you.

because you have in everything been richly blessed through union with Him, with perfect expression and fullness of knowledge.

God is entirely trustworthy, and it is He through whom you have been called into this fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now I beg you all, brothers, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be harmonious in what you say and not to have factions among you, but to be perfectly harmonious in your minds and judgments.

For I have been informed about you, my brothers, by Chloe's people, that there are wranglings among you.

Not one of this world's leaders understands it, for if they had, they would never have crucified our glorious Lord.

But, as the Scripture says, they are: "Things which eye has never seen and ear has never heard, and never have occurred to human hearts, which God prepared for those who love Him."

Now we have not received the spirit that belongs to the world but the Spirit that comes from God, that we may get an insight into the blessings God has graciously given us.

Now, brothers, for your sakes I have applied all this to Apollos and myself, that from us as illustrations you might learn the lesson, "Never go beyond what is written," so that you might stop boasting in favor of one teacher against another.

For who makes you superior? And what do you have that you did not get from someone? But if you got it from someone, why do you boast as though you had not?

Are you satisfied already? Have you grown rich already? Have you ascended your thrones without us to join you? Yes, I could wish that you had ascended your thrones, that we too might join you on them!

For we have become a spectacle to the universe, to angels as well as men. For Christ's sake we are held as fools, while you through union with Christ are men of wisdom. We are weak; you are strong. You are held in honor; we in dishonor.

To this very hour we have gone hungry, thirsty, poorly clad; we have been roughly knocked around; we have had no home.

We have worked hard with our own hands for a living. When abused by people, we bless them. When persecuted, we patiently bear it.

When we are slandered by them, we try to conciliate them. To this very hour we have been made the filth of the world, the scum of the universe!

For though you have ten thousand teachers in the Christian life, you certainly could not have many fathers. For it was I myself who became your father through your union with Christ Jesus, which resulted from my telling you the good news.

This is why I have sent Timothy to you. He is a dear child of mine and trustworthy in the Lord's work; he will call to your minds my methods in the work of Christ Jesus, just as I teach them everywhere in every church.

But some of you have become conceited over the thought that I am not coming to see you.

For my part, though I have been absent from you in person, I have been present with you in spirit, and so as really present, by the authority of our Lord Jesus, I have already passed judgment upon the man who has done this --

not that you are to stop all dealings with sexually immoral people of this world, any more than with its greedy graspers, or its idolaters, for then you would have to get clear out of the world.

For what right have I to judge outsiders? Is it not for you to judge those who are inside the church,

So if you have the ordinary cases of life for settlement, do you set up as judges the very men in the church who have no standing?

To say no more, it is a mark of moral failure among you to have lawsuits at all with one another. Why not rather suffer being wronged? Why not suffer being robbed?

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not have a share in the kingdom of God? Stop being misled; people who are sexually immoral or idolaters or adulterers or sensual or guilty of unnatural sexual vice

or thieves or greedy graspers for more or drunkards or slanderers or swindlers will not have a share in the kingdom of God.

And these are just the characters some of you used to be. But now you have washed yourselves clean, you have been consecrated, you are now in right standing with God, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.

Or, are you not conscious that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit that is in you, whom you have as a gift from God? Furthermore, you are not your own,

for you have been bought and actually paid for. So you must honor God with your bodies.

but because of so much sexual immorality every man should have a wife of his own, and every woman a husband of her own.

The wife does not have the right to do as she pleases with her own body; the husband has his right to it. In the same way the husband does not have the right to do as he pleases with his own body; the wife has her right to it.

You husbands and wives must stop refusing each other what is due, unless you agree to do so just for awhile, so as to have plenty of time for prayer, and then to be together again, so as to keep Satan from tempting you because of your lack of self-control.

You have been bought and actually paid for; stop becoming slaves to men.

About unmarried women I have no command from the Lord, but I will give you my opinion as of one who is trustworthy, since I have had mercy shown me by the Lord.

But if you do get married, you have not sinned in doing so. And if a girl gets married, she has not sinned in doing so. But those who do will have trouble in their earthly life, and I am trying to spare you this.

I mean this, brothers. The time has been cut short. For the future, men who have wives should live as though they had none,

But in my opinion she will be happier, if she remains as she is, and I think too that I have God's Spirit.

Now about the foods that have been sacrificed to idols: We know that every one of us has some knowledge of the matter. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

So, as to eating things that have been sacrificed to idols, we are sure that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but One.

For if somebody sees you, who have an intelligent view of this matter, partaking of a meal in an idol's temple, will he not be emboldened, with his overscrupulous conscience, to eat the food which has been sacrificed to an idol?

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the product of my work for the Lord?

It cannot be that we have no right to our food and drink, can it?

It cannot be that we have no right to take a Christian wife about with us, can it, as well as the rest of the apostles and the Lord's brothers, and Cephas?

Or is it Barnabas and I alone who have no right to refrain from working for a living?

If we have sown the spiritual seed for you, is it too great for us to reap a material support from you?

If others share this right with you, have we not a stronger claim? Yet, we have never used this right; no, we keep on bearing everything, to keep from hindering the progress of the good news of Christ.

But I myself have never used any of these rights. And I am not writing this just to make it so in my case, for I had rather die than do that. No one shall rob me of this ground of boasting.

For if I do preach the good news, I have no ground for boasting of it, for I cannot help doing it. Yes, indeed, I am accursed if I do not preach the good news.

Yes, indeed, though I am free from any human power, I have made myself a slave to everybody, to win as many as possible.

To the Jews I have become like a Jew for the winning of Jews; to men under the law, like one under the law, though I am not under the law myself, to win the men under the law;

to men who have no written law, like one without any law, though I am not without God's law but specially under Christ's law, to win the men who have no written law.

To the overscrupulous I have become overscrupulous, to win the overscrupulous; yes, I have become everything to everybody, in order by all means to save some of them.

But I keep on beating and bruising my body and making it my slave, so that I, after I have summoned others to the race, may not myself become unfit to run.

For I would not have you, brothers, to be ignorant of the fact that though our forefathers were all made safe by the cloud, and all went securely through the sea, and in the cloud and the sea

For if a woman will not wear a veil, let her have her hair cut off too. Now if it is a dishonor for a woman to have her hair cut off, or her head shaved, let her wear a veil.

It is not that you have no houses to eat and drink in, is it? Or, are you trying to show your contempt for the church of God and trying to humiliate those who have no houses? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? No, I cannot praise you for this.

For by one Spirit all of us, Jews or Greeks, slaves or freemen, have been baptized into one body, and were all imbued with one Spirit.

so that there is no disharmony in the body, but all the parts have a common care for one another.

If I could speak the languages of men, of angels too, and have no love, I am only a rattling pan or a clashing cymbal.

If I should have the gift of prophecy, And know all secret truths, and knowledge in its every form, and have such perfect faith that I could move mountains, but have no love, I am nothing.

If I should dole out everything I have for charity, and give my body up to torture in mere boasting pride, but have no love, I get from it no good at all.