In the same way the Spirit, too, is helping us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself pleads for us with unspeakable yearnings,

Yes, we know that all things go on working together for the good of those who keep on loving God, who are called in accordance with God's purpose.

who can condemn them? Christ Jesus who died, or rather, who was raised from the dead, is now at God's right hand, and is actually pleading for us.

I am telling the truth as a Christian man. I am telling no lie, because my conscience enlightened by the Holy Spirit is bearing me witness to this fact,

And in the place where it was said, 'You are no people of mine,' they shall be called sons of the living God."

as the Scripture says: "See, I put on Zion a stone for causing people to stumble, a rock to trip them on, but no one who puts his faith in it will ever be put to shame."

For the Scripture says, "No one who puts his faith in Him will ever be put to shame."

But there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is over them all, because He is infinitely kind to all who call upon Him.

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."

But again I ask, Israel did not understand, did they? For in the first place Moses says: "I will make you jealous of a nation that is no nation; I will provoke you to anger at a senseless nation."

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."

No, God has not disowned His people, on whom He set His heart beforehand. Do you know what the Scripture says in Elijah's case, how he pleaded with God against Israel?

Yes, I now am speaking to you who are a part of the heathen peoples. As I am an apostle to the heathen peoples, I am making the most of my ministry to them, to see

Very well, but it was for lack of faith that they were broken off, and it is through your faith that you now stand where you are. Stop your haughty thinking, rather continue to be reverent,

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.

Stop living in accordance with the customs of this world, but by the new ideals that mold your minds continue to transform yourselves, so as to find and follow God's will; that is, what is good, well-pleasing to Him, and perfect.

Now through the unmerited favor God has shown me I would say to every one of you not to estimate himself above his real value, but to make a sober rating of himself, in accordance with the degree of faith which God has apportioned to him.

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.

Do this in particular because you know the present crisis, that it is high time for you to wake up out of your sleep, for our salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed.

for the Scripture says: "'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee shall bend before me, and every tongue shall make acknowledgment to God.'"

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.

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,

But just now I am on my way to Jerusalem to help God's people.

Now I beg you, brothers, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love that the Spirit inspires, to wrestle with me in prayers to God on my behalf,

Now I introduce to you our sister Phoebe, who is a deaconess in the church at Cenchreae,

Now the peace-giving God will soon crush Satan under your feet. The spiritual blessing of our Lord Jesus be with you.

but now has been fully brought to light by means of the prophetic Scriptures, and in accordance with the command of the eternal God has been made known to all the heathen, to win them to obedience inspired by faith --

so that there is no spiritual gift in which you consciously come short, while you are waiting for the unveiling of our Lord Jesus Christ,

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.

Yes, I did baptize the family of Stephanas, too; I do not now recall that I baptized anyone else.

For since in accordance with the wisdom of God the world had never in reality, by means of its wisdom, come to know God, God chose through the nonsense of the message proclaimed, to save the people who put their faith in Him.

so that no mortal man might ever boast in the presence of God.

Now when I came to you, brothers, I did not come and tell you God's uncovered secret in rhetorical language or human philosophy,

rather, we are setting forth a wisdom that came from God, once a covered secret but now uncovered, which God marked off as His plan for bringing us to glory.

For what man can understand his own inner thoughts except by his own spirit within him? Just so no one but the Spirit of God can understand the thoughts of God.

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.

For who has ever known the Lord's thoughts, so that he can instruct Him? But we now possess Christ's thoughts.

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you could not take it. Why, you cannot take it even now,

As a skilled architect, in accordance with God's unmerited favor given to me, I laid a foundation, and now another is building upon it. But every builder must be careful how he builds upon it;

for no one can lay any other foundation than the one that is laid, that is, Jesus Christ Himself.

If the structure which one builds is burned up, he will get no pay; and yet he himself will be saved, but just as one who goes through a fire.

Let no one deceive himself. If any one of you supposes that he is wise in this world's wisdom, as compared with the rest of you, to become really wise he must become a fool.

So let no one boast in men. For everything belongs to you --

Now in this matter of trustees the first and final requirement is that they should prove to be trustworthy.

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.

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

Now what I really meant was for you to stop associating with any so-called brother, if he is sexually immoral, a greedy grasper, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a swindler -- with such a person you must even stop eating.

Do you not know that God's people are to judge the world? And if the world is to be judged before you, are you unfit to try such petty cases?

Do you not know that we Christians are to sit in judgment on angels, to say nothing of the ordinary cases of life?

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

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.

Do you not know that your bodies are parts of Christ Himself? Then may I take away parts of Christ and make them parts of a prostitute? Never! Never!

Now I take up the matters about which you wrote me. It may be good thing for a man to remain unmarried;

To the people already married I give this instruction -- no, not I but the Lord -- that a wife is not to leave her husband.

For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

Being circumcised or not being circumcised has no value, but keeping God's commands is important.

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.

Now this is my opinion in the light of the present distress: That it is a good thing for a man to remain as he is.

Now if a father thinks that he is not doing the proper thing regarding his single daughter, if she is past the bloom of her youth, and she ought to do so, let him do what she desires; he commits no sin. Let the daughter and her suitor marry.

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.

If a man supposes that he has already gotten some true knowledge, as yet he has not learned it as he ought to know it.

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.

Food will never bring us near to God. We are no worse if we do not eat it; we are no better if we do.

Now if in such a way you sin against your brothers and wound their overscrupulous consciences, you are actually sinning against Christ.

So then, if food can make my brother fall, I will never, no, never, eat meat again, in order to keep my brother from falling.

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 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.

Do you not know that those who do the work about the temple get their living from the temple, and those who constantly attend on the altar share its offerings?

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.

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.

Do you not know that in a race the runners all run, but only one can get the prize? You must run in such a way that you can get the prize.

So that is the way I run, with no uncertainty as to winning. That is the way I box, not like one that punches the air.

Now all these things occurred as warnings to us, to keep us from hankering after what is evil, in the ways they did.

Now stop being idolaters, as some of them were, for the Scripture says, "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to dance."

No temptation has taken hold of you but what is common to human nature. And God is to be trusted not to let you be tempted beyond your strength, but when temptation comes, to make a way out of it, so that you can bear up under it.

No one should always be looking after his own welfare, but also that of his neighbor.

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.

But if anyone is inclined to be contentious about it, I for my part prescribe no other practice than this, and neither do the churches of God.

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.

In the same way, after supper, He took the cup of wine, saying, "This cup is the new covenant ratified by my blood. Whenever you drink it, do so in memory of me."

You know that when you were heathen you were in the habit of going off, wherever you might be led, after idols that could not speak.

So I want to inform you that no one speaking under the power of the Spirit of God can say, "Jesus is accursed!" and no one except one under the power of the Holy Spirit can really say, "Jesus is Lord!"

But as it now is, God has placed the parts, every one of them, in the body just as He wanted them to be.

But as it now is, there are many parts, but one body.

No, on the contrary, even those parts of the body that seem to be most delicate are indispensable,

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.

Love never fails; if there are prophecies, they will be set aside; if now exist ecstatic speakings, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will soon be set aside;

For what we know is incomplete and what we prophesy is incomplete.

For now we see a dim reflection in a looking-glass. But then we shall see face to face; Now what I know is imperfect, but then I shall know perfectly, as God knows me.

For whoever speaks in ecstasy is speaking not to men but to God, for no one understands him, and yet by the Spirit he is speaking secret truths.