After we tore ourselves away from them, we put out to sea, and sailing a straight course, we came to Cos, on the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara.

This man was seized by the Jews and they were about to kill him, when I came up with the detachment and rescued him, because I had learned that he was a Roman citizen.

For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones,

And David says, “Let their table become a snare and trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them;

I ask then, they did not stumble into an irrevocable fall, did they? Absolutely not! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make Israel jealous.

Also greet the church in their house. Greet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.

Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who create dissensions and obstacles contrary to the teaching that you learned. Avoid them!

For the wisdom of this age is foolishness with God. As it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness.”

I am saying this for your benefit, not to place a limitation on you, but so that without distraction you may give notable and constant service to the Lord.

So do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”

Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, then why are they baptized for them?

The churches in the province of Asia send greetings to you. Aquila and Prisca greet you warmly in the Lord, with the church that meets in their house.

And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised.

Therefore “come out from their midst, and be separate,” says the Lord, “and touch no unclean thing, and I will welcome you,

Therefore it is not surprising his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will correspond to their actions.

So I say this, and insist in the Lord, that you no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.

They are darkened in their understanding, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.

Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, they exult in their shame, and they think about earthly things.

My goal is that their hearts, having been knit together in love, may be encouraged, and that they may have all the riches that assurance brings in their understanding of the knowledge of the mystery of God, namely, Christ,

because they hinder us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they constantly fill up their measure of sins, but wrath has come upon them completely.