(I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) ¹  For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it would be shown to be sin, produced death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

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.

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,

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),

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 

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?

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in him, ¹  so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But I myself am fully convinced about you, my brothers and sisters, ¹  that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.

Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, ¹  through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit, to join fervently with me in prayer to God on my behalf.

For these are the kind who do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By their smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds ¹  of the naive.

Who ever serves in the army at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Who tends a flock and does not consume its milk?

If others receive this right from you, are we not more deserving? But we have not made use of this right. Instead we endure everything so that we may not be a hindrance to the gospel of Christ.

Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread that we break a sharing in the body of Christ?

Do you not have houses so that you can eat and drink? Or are you trying to show contempt for the church of God by shaming those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you? I will not praise you for this!

The secrets of his heart are disclosed, and in this way he will fall down with his face to the ground and worship God, declaring, “God is really among you.”

who comforts us in all our troubles ¹  so that we may be able to comfort those experiencing any trouble ²  with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For our reason for confidence ¹  is this: the testimony of our conscience, that with pure motives ²  and sincerity which are from God ³  – not by human wisdom ⁴  but by the grace of God – we conducted ourselves in the world, and all the more ⁵  toward you.

among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe ¹  so they would not see the light of the glorious gospel ²  of Christ, ³  who is the image of God.

For we groan while we are in this tent, ¹  since we are weighed down, ²  because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.