But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members.

Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, ¹  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God ²  – which is your reasonable service.

And do this ¹  because we know ²  the time, that it is already the hour for us to awake from sleep, for our salvation is now nearer than when we became believers.

Your obedience is known to all and thus I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.

But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing these things so that something will be done for me. ¹  In fact, it would be better for me to die than – no one will deprive me of my reason for boasting! ² 

For this reason, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, ¹  I set aside childish ways.

So then, tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers. Prophecy, however, is not for unbelievers but for believers.

just as also you have partly understood us, that we are your source of pride just as you also are ours ¹  in the day of the Lord Jesus. ² 

And I wrote this very thing to you, ¹  so that when I came ²  I would not have sadness from those who ought to make me rejoice, since I am confident in you all that my joy would be yours.

We are not trying to commend ¹  ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to be proud of us, ²  so that you may be able to answer those who take pride ³  in outward appearance ⁴  and not in what is in the heart.

So then from now on we acknowledge ¹  no one from an outward human point of view. ²  Even though we have known Christ from such a human point of view, ³  now we do not know him in that way any longer.

Therefore we have been encouraged. And in addition to our own encouragement, we rejoiced even more at the joy of Titus, because all of you have refreshed his spirit. ¹ 

even because of the extraordinary character of the revelations. Therefore, ¹  so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble ²  me – so that I would not become arrogant. ³ 

For indeed he was crucified by reason of weakness, but he lives because of God’s power. For we also are weak in him, but we will live together with him, because of God’s power toward you.

Let no one who delights in humility and the worship of angels pass judgment on you. That person goes on at great lengths ¹  about what he has supposedly seen, but he is puffed up with empty notions by his fleshly mind. ² 

And in this regard we pray for you always, that our God will make you worthy of his calling ¹  and fulfill by his power your every desire for goodness and every work of faith,

Therefore he had ¹  to be made like his brothers and sisters ²  in every respect, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God, to make atonement ³  for the sins of the people.

Therefore we must progress beyond ¹  the elementary ²  instructions about Christ ³  and move on ⁴  to maturity, not laying this foundation again: repentance from dead works and faith in God,

so that we who have found refuge in him ¹  may find strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us through two unchangeable things, since it is impossible for God to lie.