since he has fixed a day on which he will justly judge the world through a man whom he has appointed, and whom he has guaranteed to all men by raising him from the dead."

But as they contradicted and abused him, he shook his clothes in protest, and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am not to blame for it! After this I will go to the heathen."

He bade them goodbye, saying, "I will come back to you again if it is God's will." Then he sailed from Ephesus.

There is danger, therefore, not only that this business of ours will be discredited, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be neglected and the magnificence of her whom all Asia and the world worship will be a thing of the past!"

For we are in danger of being charged with rioting in connection with today's events, though there is really nothing about this commotion that we will not be able to explain."

I am here now on my way to Jerusalem, for the Spirit compels me to go there, though I do not know what will happen to me there,

Now I know perfectly well that none of you among whom I went about preaching the Kingdom of God will ever see my face again.

I know that after I am gone savage wolves will get in among you and will not spare the flock,

and from your own number men will appear and teach perversions of the truth in order to draw the disciples away after them.

Now I commit you to the Lord, and to the message of his favor, which will build you up and give you a place among those whom God has consecrated.

He came to see us and took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands with it, and said, "This is what the holy Spirit says: 'The Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt like this, and will hand him over to the heathen!' "

So as he would not yield, we gave up urging him, and said, "The Lord's will be done!"

What then? They will be sure to hear that you have come.

Join them, undergo the rites of purification with them, and pay their expenses so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everybody will understand that there is no truth in the stories about you, but that you yourself observe the Law.

as the high priest and the whole council will bear me witness. In fact, they gave me letters to the brothers in Damascus and I went there to bind those who were there and bring them back to Jerusalem to be punished.

Then I said, 'What am I to do, sir?' The Lord said to me, 'Get up and go into Damascus. There you will be told of all you are destined to do.'

and he said, 'The God of our forefathers has appointed you to learn his will and to see his Righteous One and hear him speak,

and saw him saying to me, 'Make haste and leave Jerusalem at once, for they will not accept your evidence about me.'

But he said to me, 'Go! I will send you far away to the heathen.' "

Then Paul said to him, "God will strike you, you white-washed wall! Do you sit there to try me by the Law, and order them to strike me in violation of the Law?"

Now you and the council must suggest to the colonel that he should have Paul brought down to you, as you mean to look into his case more carefully, and we will be ready to kill him before he gets down."

he said, "I will hear your case as soon as your accusers arrive." And he gave orders that he should be kept in Herod's palace.

If you will examine him yourself you will be able to find out from him all about the things we charge him with."

Then Felix, who was somewhat well informed about the Way, adjourned the trial, saying to the Jews, "When Lysias, the colonel, comes down here, I will decide your case."

But as he talked of uprightness, self-control, and the coming judgment, Felix became alarmed, and said, "You may go for the present. I will find time later to send for you."

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 get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for the express purpose of appointing you to serve me and to testify to what you have seen and to the visions you will have of me.

I will save you from your people and from the heathen, to whom I will send you

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.

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

I beg you to eat something; it is necessary for your safety. For not one of you will lose even a hair of his head."

When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, "This man is undoubtedly a murderer, for though he has been saved from the sea, justice will not let him live."

" 'Go to this Nation and say to them, "You will listen, and listen, and never understand, And you will look, and look, and never see!

"Understand then that this message of God's salvation has been sent to the heathen. They will listen to it!"

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

For I long to see you, to convey to you some spiritual gift that will strengthen you;

In it God's way of uprightness is disclosed through faith and for faith, just as the Scripture says, "The upright will have life because of his faith."

And do you suppose, when you sit in judgment upon those who do such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?

But in your obstinacy and impenitence you are storing up wrath for yourself on the Day of Wrath, when the justice of God will burst forth.

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 self-seeking people who are disloyal to the truth and responsive only to what is wrong will experience anger and fury,

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 they show that what the Law demands is written on their hearts, and their consciences will testify for them, and with their thoughts they will either accuse or perhaps defend themselves,

and can understand his will, and from hearing the Law read can tell what is right,

train the foolish, teach the young, since you have knowledge and truth formulated in the Law??21 why, then, will you teach others and refuse to teach yourself? Will you preach against stealing, and yet steal yourself?

Will you warn men against adultery, and yet practice it yourself? Will you pretend to detest idols, and yet rob their temples?

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?

And if, although they are physically uncircumcised, they obey the Law, they will condemn you, who break the Law, although you have it in writing, and are circumcised.

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!

there is but one God, and he will make the circumcised upright on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised upright because of theirs."

Happy is the man whose sin the Lord will take no account of!"

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

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.

For if that one man's offense made death reign through that one man, all the more will those who receive God's overflowing mercy and his gift of uprightness live and reign through the one individual Jesus Christ.

For just as that one man's disobedience made the mass of mankind sinners, so this one's obedience will make the mass of them upright.

for we know that Christ, once raised from the dead, will never die again; death has no more hold on him.

For I know that nothing good resides in me, that is, in my physical self; I can will, but I cannot do what is right.

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has taken possession of you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give your mortal bodies life through his Spirit that has taken possession of you.

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 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

and he who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit means, for it pleads for God's people in accordance with his will.

Will not he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, with that gift give us everything?

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!

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."

For this is what the promise said: "When I come back at this time next year, Sarah will have a son."

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

He said to Moses, "I will have mercy on the man on whom I choose to have mercy, and take pity on the man on whom I choose to take pity."

So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on the mercy of God.

"Why, then," you will ask, "does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?"

Just as he says in Hosea, "I will call a people that was not mine, my people, And her who was not beloved, my beloved,

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,

for the Lord will execute his sentence rigorously and swiftly on the earth."

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.

But this is what the uprightness that springs from faith says: "Do not say to yourself, 'Who will go up to heaven?' " that is, to bring Christ down;

or " 'Who will go down into the depths?' " that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.

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.

But I ask again, did Israel fail to understand? Why, to begin with, Moses said, "I will make you jealous of what is no nation at all, I will exasperate you at a senseless nation."

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."

But if their false step has so enriched the world, and their defeat has so enriched the heathen, how much more good the addition of their full number will do!

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you who were only a wild olive shoot have been grafted in, in place of them, and made to share the richness of the olive's root,

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

for if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you.

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.

Those others too, if they do not cling to their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.

For if you were cut from a wild olive and unnaturally grafted upon a cultivated one, how much easier it will be to graft them upon the olive to which they properly belong!

and then all Israel will be saved, just as the Scripture says, "The deliverer will come from Zion, He will drive all ungodliness away from Jacob,

And this will be my agreement with them, When I take away their sins."

"Or who has advanced anything to him, for which he will have to be repaid?"

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by this mercy of God, to offer your bodies in a living sacrifice that will be holy and acceptable to God; that is your rational worship.

You must not adopt the customs of this world but by your new attitude of mind be transformed so that you can find out what God's will is??hat is good, pleasing, and perfect.

Do not take your revenge, dear friends, but leave room for God's anger, for the Scripture says, "Vengeance belongs to me; I will pay them back, says the Lord."

No! If your enemy is hungry, feed him! If he is thirsty, give him something to drink! For if you do, you will heap burning coals upon his head!

so that anyone who resists the authorities sets himself in opposition to what God has ordained, and those who oppose him will bring down judgment upon themselves.