Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

or “Who will descend into the abyss?” ¹  (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).

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?

For we know that the law is spiritual – but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. ¹ 

through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice ¹  in the hope of God’s glory.

But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ¹  ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” ²  (that is, to bring Christ down)

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

Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life. ¹ 

I ask then, they did not stumble into an irrevocable fall, ¹  did they? Absolutely not! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make Israel ²  jealous.

So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people ¹  because ²  all sinned –

Contribute to the needs of the saints, pursue hospitality.

But I ask, have they ¹  not heard? ²  Yes, they have: ³  Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. ⁴ 

and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings ¹  or birds or four-footed animals ²  or reptiles.

And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God ¹  has been poured out ²  in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, ¹  but you received the Spirit of adoption, ²  by whom ³  we cry, “Abba, Father.”

For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones, ¹ 

blessed is the one ¹  against whom the Lord will never count ²  sin.” ³ 

(as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”). ¹  He is our father ²  in the presence of God whom he believed – the God who ³  makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do. ⁴ 

They ¹  exchanged the truth of God for a lie ²  and worshiped and served the creation ³  rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son ¹  would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ²