Against hope Abraham believed in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations according to the pronouncement, “so will your descendants be.”

Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.

that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed – cut off from Christ – for the sake of my people, my fellow countrymen,

Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use?

But what if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction?

“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”

just as it is written, “Look, I am laying in Zion a stone that will cause people to stumble and a rock that will make them fall, yet the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

So I ask, God has not rejected his people, has he? Absolutely not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

But what was the divine response to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand people who have not bent the knee to Baal.”

as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, to this very day.”

Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among them and participated in the richness of the olive root,

Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. Do not be conceited.

The one who eats everything must not despise the one who does not, and the one who abstains must not judge the one who eats everything, for God has accepted him.

Now may the God of endurance and comfort give you unity with one another in accordance with Christ Jesus,

And again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will come, and the one who rises to rule over the Gentiles, in him will the Gentiles hope.”

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!

and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

For God, whom I serve in my spirit by preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness that I continually remember you