For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared ¹  to the glory that will be revealed to us.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ¹ 

who are Israelites. To them belong ¹  the adoption as sons, ²  the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple worship, ³  and the promises.

To them belong the patriarchs, ¹  and from them, ²  by human descent, ³  came the Christ, ⁴  who is God over all, blessed forever! ⁵  Amen.

Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay ¹  one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use? ² 

But what if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects ¹  of wrath ²  prepared for destruction? ³ 

“And in the very place ¹  where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’” ² 

For there is no distinction between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, who richly blesses all who call on him.

But what was the divine response ¹  to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand people ²  who have not bent the knee to Baal.” ³ 

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.” ¹ 

And even they – if they do not continue in their unbelief – will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

And we have different gifts ¹  according to the grace given to us. If the gift is prophecy, that individual must use it in proportion to his faith.

Also greet the church in their house. Greet my dear friend Epenetus, ¹  who was the first convert ²  to Christ in the province of Asia. ³ 

Or do you have contempt for the wealth of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, and yet do not know ¹  that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?

Thanks be ¹  to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, ²  I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but ³  with my flesh I serve ⁴  the law of sin.

Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, ¹  groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, ²  the redemption of our bodies. ³ 

(for rulers cause no fear for good conduct but for bad). Do you desire not to fear authority? Do good and you will receive its commendation,

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.

For if your brother or sister ¹  is distressed because of what you eat, ²  you are no longer walking in love. ³  Do not destroy by your food someone for whom Christ died.

For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?