Their differences with him were about their own religion and about a certain Jesus who had died but who Paul said was alive.

Then Festus said, "King Agrippa and all who are present, you see here the man about whom the whole Jewish people have applied to me both at Jerusalem and here, clamoring that he ought not to live any longer.

'Who are you, sir?' said I. The Lord said, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

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

to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from Satan's control to God, so that they may have their sins forgiven and have a place among those who are consecrated through faith in me.'

but first to the people of Damascus and Jerusalem and then all over Judea, and even to the heathen I preached that they must repent and turn to God and live as men who have repented should.

"In a hurry or not," said Paul, "I would to God that not only you, but all who hear me today, might be what I am??xcept for these chains!"

Then the king rose, with the governor and Bernice and those who had sat with them,

and said, 'Do not be afraid, Paul! You must stand before the emperor, and see! God has given you the lives of all the people who are on the ship with you.'

but the officer wanted to save Paul, and so he prevented them from doing this, and ordered all who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land,

"We have had no letters about you from Judea," they answered, "and none of the brothers who have come here has reported or said anything against you.

So he stayed for two full years in rented lodgings of his own, and welcomed everybody who came to see him,

about his Son, who was physically descended from David,

through whom we have received God's favor and been commissioned in his name to urge obedience and faith upon all the heathen,

including you who have been called to belong to Jesus Christ??7 to all those in Rome whom God loves, who are called to be his people; God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ bless you and give you peace.

As God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in spreading the good news of his Son, I never fail to mention you when I pray,

For I am not ashamed of the good news, for it is God's power for the salvation of everyone who has faith, of the Jew first and then of the Greek.

For God's anger is breaking forth from heaven against all the impiety and wickedness of the men who in their wickedness are suppressing the truth.

For they had exchanged the truth of God for what was false, and worshiped and served what he had created, instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen!

They know God's decree that those who act in this way deserve to die, yet they not only do it, but applaud any who do.

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, if you pose as a judge, for when you pass judgment on someone else, you are condemning yourself, for you, who sit in judgment, do the very same things yourself.

We know that God's judgment rightfully falls upon those who do such things as these.

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?

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.

When heathen who have no Law instinctively obey what the Law demands, even though they have no law they are a law to themselves,

and you are sure that you can guide the blind, enlighten people who are in the dark,

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.

For the real Jew is not the man who is one outwardly, and the real circumcision is not something physical and external.

The real Jew is the man who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, a spiritual, not a literal, thing. Such a man receives his praise not from men, but from God.

As the Scripture says, "There is not a single man who is upright,

It is God's way of uprightness and comes through having faith in Jesus Christ, and it is for all who have faith, without distinction.

For God showed him publicly dying as a sacrifice of reconciliation to be taken advantage of through faith. This was to vindicate his own justice (for in his forbearance, God passed over men's former sins)??26 to vindicate his justice at the present time, and show that he is upright himself, and that he makes those who have faith in Jesus upright also.

but a man who has no work to offer, but has faith in him who can make the ungodly upright, has his faith credited to him as uprightness.

So David himself says of the happiness of those to whom God credits uprightness without any reference to their actions,

Does this happiness apply to those who are circumcised, or to those who are uncircumcised as well? What we say is, Abraham's faith was credited to him as uprightness.

and he was afterward given the mark of circumcision as the stamp of God's acknowledgment of the uprightness based on faith that was his before he was circumcised, so that he should be the forefather of all who, without being circumcised, have faith and so are credited with uprightness,

and the forefather of those circumcised persons who not only share his circumcision but follow our forefather Abraham's example in the faith he had before he was circumcised.

For if it is the adherents of the Law who are to possess it, faith is nullified and the promise amounts to nothing!

That is why it all turns upon faith; it is to make it a matter of God's favor, so that the promise may hold good for all Abraham's descendants, not only those who are adherents of the Law, but also those who share the faith of Abraham. For he is the father of all of us;

as the Scripture says, "I have made you the father of many nations." The promise is guaranteed in the very sight of God in whom he had faith, who can bring the dead to life and call into being what does not exist.

but also on ours, for it is to be credited also to us who have faith in him who raised from the dead our Lord Jesus,

who was given up to death to make up for our offenses, and raised to life to make us upright.

by whom we have been introduced through faith to the favor of God that we now enjoy, and let us glory in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

More than that, we actually glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom we owe our reconciliation.

Still death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned as Adam had, in the face of an express command. So Adam foreshadowed the one who was to come.

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.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into union with Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?

Do you not know that when you submit to being someone's slaves, and obeying him, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey, whether your slavery is to sin, and leads to death, or is to obedience, and leads to uprightness?

Do you not know, brothers??or I am speaking to men who know what law is??hat law governs a man only as long as he lives?

So you, in turn, my brothers, in the body of Christ have become dead as far as the Law is concerned, so that you may belong to another husband, who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God.

I find the law to be that I who want to do right am dogged by what is wrong.

What a wretched man I am! Who can save me from this doomed body?

So there is no condemnation any more for those who are in union with Christ Jesus.

People who are controlled by the physical think of what is physical, and people who are controlled by the spiritual think of what is spiritual.

Those who are physical cannot please God.

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 all who are guided by God's Spirit are God's sons.

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

It was in this hope that we were saved. But a hope that can be seen is not a hope, for who hopes for what he sees?

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

We know that in everything God works with those who love him, whom he has called in accordance with his purpose, to bring about what is good.

For those whom he had marked out from the first he predestined to be made like his Son, so that he should be the eldest of many brothers;

and those whom he has predestined he calls, and those whom he calls he makes upright, and those whom he makes upright he glorifies.

Then what shall we conclude from this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

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

Who can bring any accusation against those whom God has chosen? God pronounces them upright;

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

Who can separate us from Christ's love? Can trouble or misfortune or persecution or hunger or destitution or danger or the sword?

But in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us.

and the patriarchs, and from them physically Christ came??od who is over all be blessed forever! Amen.

Not that God's message has failed. For not everybody who is descended from Israel really belongs to Israel,

That is to say, it is not his physical descendants who are children of God, but his descendants born in fulfilment of the promise who are considered his true posterity.

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."

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

On the contrary, who are you, my friend, to answer back to God? Can something a man shapes say to the man who shaped it, "Why did you make me like this?"

so as to show all the wealth of his glory in dealing with the objects of his mercy, whom he has prepared from the beginning to share his glory,

including us whom he has called not only from among the Jews but from among the heathen?

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,

Then what do we conclude? That heathen who were not striving for uprightness attained it, that is, an uprightness which was produced by faith;

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."

For Christ marks the termination of law, so that now anyone who has faith may attain uprightness.

Moses said that anyone who carried out the uprightness the Law prescribed would find life through it.

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 the Scripture says, "No one who has faith in him will be disappointed."

There is no distinction between Jew and Greek for they all have the same Lord, and he is generous to all who call upon him.

For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

And how are men to preach unless they are sent to do it? As the Scripture says, "How welcome is the coming of those who bring good news!"

It is true, they have not all accepted the good news, for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what we have told?"

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 what is God's reply? "I have left myself seven thousand men who have never knelt to Baal!"

What follows? Israel failed to get what it sought, but those whom God selected got it.

But it is to you who are of the heathen that I am speaking. So far then as I am an apostle to the heathen, I make the most of my ministry,

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,

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.

for God does not change his mind about those to whom he gives his blessings or sends his call.