Romans 8; Romans 9; Romans 10

Romans 8

1 So now, those who are in Christ Jesus are not judged guilty.

2 Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made me free from the law that brings sin and death.

3 The law was without power, because the law was made weak by our sinful selves. But God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son to earth with the same human life that others use for sin. By sending his Son to be an offering to pay for sin, God used a human life to destroy sin.

4 He did this so that we could be the kind of people the law correctly wants us to be. Now we do not live following our sinful selves, but we live following the Spirit.

5 Those who live following their sinful selves think only about things that their sinful selves want. But those who live following the Spirit are thinking about the things the Spirit wants them to do.

6 If people's thinking is controlled by the sinful self, there is death. But if their thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace.

7 When people's thinking is controlled by the sinful self, they are against God, because they refuse to obey God's law and really are not even able to obey God's law.

8 Those people who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot please God.

9 But you are not ruled by your sinful selves. You are ruled by the Spirit, if that Spirit of God really lives in you. But the person who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ.

10 Your body will always be dead because of sin. But if Christ is in you, then the Spirit gives you life, because Christ made you right with God.

11 God raised Jesus from the dead, and if God's Spirit is living in you, he will also give life to your bodies that die. God is the One who raised Christ from the dead, and he will give life through his Spirit that lives in you.

12 So, my brothers and sisters, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves or live the way our sinful selves want.

13 If you use your lives to do the wrong things your sinful selves want, you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit's help to stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, you will have true life.

14 The true children of God are those who let God's Spirit lead them.

15 The Spirit we received does not make us slaves again to fear; it makes us children of God. With that Spirit we cry out, "Father."

16 And the Spirit himself joins with our spirits to say we are God's children.

17 If we are God's children, we will receive blessings from God together with Christ. But we must suffer as Christ suffered so that we will have glory as Christ has glory.

18 The sufferings we have now are nothing compared to the great glory that will be shown to us.

19 Everything God made is waiting with excitement for God to show his children's glory completely.

20 Everything God made was changed to become useless, not by its own wish but because God wanted it and because all along there was this hope:

21 that everything God made would be set free from ruin to have the freedom and glory that belong to God's children.

22 We know that everything God made has been waiting until now in pain, like a woman ready to give birth.

23 Not only the world, but we also have been waiting with pain inside us. We have the Spirit as the first part of God's promise. So we are waiting for God to finish making us his own children, which means our bodies will be made free.

24 We were saved, and we have this hope. If we see what we are waiting for, that is not really hope. People do not hope for something they already have.

25 But we are hoping for something we do not have yet, and we are waiting for it patiently.

26 Also, the Spirit helps us with our weakness. We do not know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit himself speaks to God for us, even begs God for us with deep feelings that words cannot explain.

27 God can see what is in people's hearts. And he knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit speaks to God for his people in the way God wants.

28 We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him. They are the people he called, because that was his plan.

29 God knew them before he made the world, and he decided that they would be like his Son so that Jesus would be the firstbornn of many brothers.

30 God planned for them to be like his Son; and those he planned to be like his Son, he also called; and those he called, he also made right with him; and those he made right, he also glorified.

31 So what should we say about this? If God is with us, no one can defeat us.

32 He did not spare his own Son but gave him for us all. So with Jesus, God will surely give us all things.

33 Who can accuse the people God has chosen? No one, because God is the One who makes them right.

34 Who can say God's people are guilty? No one, because Christ Jesus died, but he was also raised from the dead, and now he is on God's right side, begging God for us.

35 Can anything separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can troubles or problems or sufferings or hunger or nakedness or danger or violent death?

36 As it is written in the Scriptures: "For you we are in danger of death all the time. People think we are worth no more than sheep to be killed."

37 But in all these things we have full victory through God who showed his love for us.

38 Yes, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers,

39 nothing above us, nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 9

1 I am in Christ, and I am telling you the truth; I do not lie. My conscience is ruled by the Holy Spirit, and it tells me I am not lying.

2 I have great sorrow and always feel much sadness.

3 I wish I could help my Jewish brothers and sisters, my people. I would even wish that I were cursed and cut off from Christ if that would help them.

4 They are the people of Israel, God's chosen children. They have seen the glory of God, and they have the agreements that God made between himself and his people. God gave them the law of Moses and the right way of worship and his promises.

5 They are the descendants of our great ancestors, and they are the earthly family into which Christ was born, who is God over all. Praise him forever! Amen.

6 It is not that God failed to keep his promise to them. But only some of the people of Israel are truly God's people,

7 and only some of Abraham'sn descendants are true children of Abraham. But God said to Abraham: "The descendants I promised you will be from Isaac."

8 This means that not all of Abraham's descendants are God's true children. Abraham's true children are those who become God's children because of the promise God made to Abraham.

9 God's promise to Abraham was this: "At the right time I will return, and Sarah will have a son."

10 And that is not all. Rebekah's sons had the same father, our father Isaac.

11

12 But before the two boys were born, God told Rebekah, "The older will serve the younger." This was before the boys had done anything good or bad. God said this so that the one chosen would be chosen because of God's own plan. He was chosen because he was the one God wanted to call, not because of anything he did.

13 As the Scripture says, "I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau."

14 So what should we say about this? Is God unfair? In no way.

15 God said to Moses, "I will show kindness to anyone to whom I want to show kindness, and I will show mercy to anyone to whom I want to show mercy."

16 So God will choose the one to whom he decides to show mercy; his choice does not depend on what people want or try to do.

17 The Scripture says to the king of Egypt: "I made you king for this reason: to show my power in you so that my name will be talked about in all the earth."

18 So God shows mercy where he wants to show mercy, and he makes stubborn the people he wants to make stubborn.

19 So one of you will ask me: "Then why does God blame us for our sins? Who can fight his will?"

20 You are only human, and human beings have no right to question God. An object should not ask the person who made it, "Why did you make me like this?"

21 The potter can make anything he wants to make. He can use the same clay to make one thing for special use and another thing for daily use.

22 It is the same way with God. He wanted to show his anger and to let people see his power. But he patiently stayed with those people he was angry with -- people who were made ready to be destroyed.

23 He waited with patience so that he could make known his rich glory to the people who receive his mercy. He has prepared these people to have his glory,

24 and we are those people whom God called. He called us not from the Jews only but also from those who are not Jews.

25 As the Scripture says in Hosea: "I will say, 'You are my people' to those I had called 'not my people.' And I will show my love to those people I did not love."

26 "They were called, 'You are not my people,' but later they will be called 'children of the living God.' "

27 And Isaiah cries out about Israel: "The people of Israel are many, like the grains of sand by the sea. But only a few of them will be saved,

28 because the Lord will quickly and completely punish the people on the earth."

29 It is as Isaiah said: "The Lord All-Powerful allowed a few of our descendants to live. Otherwise we would have been completely destroyed like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah."

30 So what does all this mean? Those who are not Jews were not trying to make themselves right with God, but they were made right with God because of their faith.

31 The people of Israel tried to follow a law to make themselves right with God. But they did not succeed,

32 because they tried to make themselves right by the things they did instead of trusting in God to make them right. They stumbled over the stone that causes people to stumble.

33 As it is written in the Scripture: "I will put in Jerusalem a stone that causes people to stumble, a rock that makes them fall. Anyone who trusts in him will never be disappointed."

Romans 10

1 Brothers and sisters, the thing I want most is for all the Jews to be saved. That is my prayer to God.

2 I can say this about them: They really try to follow God, but they do not know the right way.

3 Because they did not know the way that God makes people right with him, they tried to make themselves right in their own way. So they did not accept God's way of making people right.

4 Christ ended the law so that everyone who believes in him may be right with God.

5 Moses writes about being made right by following the law. He says, "A person who obeys these things will live because of them."

6 But this is what the Scripture says about being made right through faith: "Don't say to yourself, 'Who will go up into heaven?' " (That means, "Who will go up to heaven and bring Christ down to earth?")

7 "And do not say, 'Who will go down into the world below?' " (That means, "Who will go down and bring Christ up from the dead?")

8 This is what the Scripture says: "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart." That is the teaching of faith that we are telling.

9 If you use your mouth to say, "Jesus is Lord," and if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved.

10 We believe with our hearts, and so we are made right with God. And we use our mouths to say that we believe, and so we are saved.

11 As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be disappointed."

12 That Scripture says "anyone" because there is no difference between those who are Jews and those who are not. The same Lord is the Lord of all and gives many blessings to all who trust in him,

13 as the Scripture says, "Anyone who calls on the Lord will be saved."

14 But before people can ask the Lord for help, they must believe in him; and before they can believe in him, they must hear about him; and for them to hear about the Lord, someone must tell them;

15 and before someone can go and tell them, that person must be sent. It is written, "How beautiful is the person who comes to bring good news."

16 But not all the Jews accepted the good news. Isaiah said, "Lord, who believed what we told them?"

17 So faith comes from hearing the Good News, and people hear the Good News when someone tells them about Christ.

18 But I ask: Didn't people hear the Good News? Yes, they heard -- as the Scripture says: "Their message went out through all the world; their words go everywhere on earth."

19 Again I ask: Didn't the people of Israel understand? Yes, they did understand. First, Moses says: "I will use those who are not a nation to make you jealous. I will use a nation that does not understand to make you angry." Deuteronomy

20 Then Isaiah is bold enough to say: "I was found by those who were not asking me for help. I made myself known to people who were not looking for me."

21 But about Israel God says, "All day long I stood ready to accept people who disobey and are stubborn."