Some days later, when Felix ¹  arrived with his wife Drusilla, ²  who was Jewish, he sent for Paul and heard him speak ³  about faith in Christ Jesus. ⁴ 

After Festus ¹  had stayed ²  not more than eight or ten days among them, he went down to Caesarea, ³  and the next day he sat ⁴  on the judgment seat ⁵  and ordered Paul to be brought.

So the next day Agrippa ¹  and Bernice came with great pomp ²  and entered the audience hall, ³  along with the senior military officers ⁴  and the prominent men of the city. When Festus ⁵  gave the order, ⁶  Paul was brought in.

When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ¹  ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You are hurting yourself ²  by kicking against the goads.’ ³ 

to open their eyes so that they turn ¹  from darkness to light and from the power ²  of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share ³  among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

So they slipped ¹  the anchors ²  and left them in the sea, at the same time loosening the linkage ³  that bound the steering oars ⁴  together. Then they hoisted ⁵  the foresail ⁶  to the wind and steered toward ⁷  the beach.

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.

This was ¹  also to demonstrate ²  his righteousness in the present time, so that he would be just ³  and the justifier of the one who lives because of Jesus’ faithfulness. ⁴ 

And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised, ¹  so that he would become ²  the father of all those who believe but have never been circumcised, ³  that they too could have righteousness credited to them.

and do not present your members to sin as instruments ¹  to be used for unrighteousness, ²  but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments ³  to be used for righteousness.

For when we were in the flesh, ¹  the sinful desires, ²  aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body ³  to bear fruit for death.

For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. ¹ 

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.

For God achieved what the law could not do because ¹  it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, ¹  but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.

For the scripture says to Pharaoh: ¹  “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may demonstrate my power in you, and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” ² 

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” ¹  (that is, the word of faith that we preach),

because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord ¹  and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Notice therefore the kindness and harshness of God – harshness toward those who have fallen, but ¹  God’s kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; ²  otherwise you also will be cut off.

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?