Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!”

Now then, why do you test God by placing on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

This is a trustworthy saying: If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble task. An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not dependent on wine, not violent but gentle, peaceable, and free of the love of money. An overseer must manage his own household well and keep his children under control, with complete dignity. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for the church of God? . . .

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh; but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and His word is not in us.

Therefore prepare your minds for action. Be sober-minded. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.

Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Jesus declared, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord.

You, however, are controlled not by the flesh, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live,

If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with your heart you believe and are justified, and with your mouth you confess and are saved.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men, because all sinned.

Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.

Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good to abstain from sexual relations. But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife. Do not deprive each other, except by mutual consent and for a time, so you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you through your lack of self-control. . . .

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to the king as the supreme authority, or to governors as those sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right.

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like a mighty rushing wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw tongues like flames of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. . . .

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Salvation exists in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

And in Him, having heard and believed the word of truth—the gospel of your salvation—you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,

And in Him, having heard and believed the word of truth—the gospel of your salvation—you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession, to the praise of His glory.

This issue arose because some false brothers had come in under false pretenses to spy on our freedom in Christ Jesus, in order to enslave us.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. . . .

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

So too, faith by itself, if it does not result in action, is dead.

I know, O LORD, that a man’s way is not his own; no one who walks directs his own steps.

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

At that time some of those present told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. To this He replied, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered this fate? No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam collapsed on them: Do you think that they were more sinful than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

But you shall not be like them. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who leads like the one who serves.

“Watch out!” Jesus told them. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples: “The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So practice and observe everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter.

So practice and observe everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.

Because of this, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and others you will flog in your synagogues and persecute in town after town.

“Do not judge, or you will be judged.

Every word of God is flawless; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you and prove you a liar.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.

For if, when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many!

The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given one Spirit to drink.

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, and in which you stand firm. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve. . . .

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. I was not including the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a verbal abuser, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

and well known for good deeds such as bringing up children, entertaining strangers, washing the feet of the saints, imparting relief to the afflicted, and devoting herself to every good work.

be heard by You from heaven, Your dwelling place. And may You forgive and repay each man according to all his ways, since You know his heart—for You alone know the hearts of men—

Now it is God who establishes both us and you in Christ. He anointed us, placed His seal on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a pledge of what is to come.

In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or exalts himself or strikes you in the face.

Even in times past, while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them back. And to you the LORD said, ‘You will shepherd My people Israel, and you will be ruler over them.’”

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true.

Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a feast, a New Moon, or a Sabbath.

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, which are based on human tradition and the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ.

In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will,

For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love

Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who only feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed their flock? You eat the fat, wear the wool, and butcher the fattened sheep, but you do not feed the flock. You have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bound up the injured, brought back the strays, or searched for the lost. Instead, you have ruled them with violence and cruelty. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild beasts. . . .

You have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bound up the injured, brought back the strays, or searched for the lost. Instead, you have ruled them with violence and cruelty.

For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself, for fear of those in the circumcision group.

Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. They only do this to avoid persecution for the cross of Christ. For the circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.

Then they understood that He was not telling them to beware of the leaven used in bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples: “The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.

Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes it sacred?

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Whoever conceals an offense promotes love, but he who brings it up separates friends.

The LORD looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if any understand, if any seek God. All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

If your brother is distressed by what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother, for whom Christ died.

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea. Welcome her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and assist her with anything she may need from you. For she has been a great help to many people, including me. Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who have risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. Greet also the church that meets at their house. Greet my beloved Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia. . . .

For sin was in the world before the law was given; but sin is not taken into account when there is no law.

because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.