Romans 8:16–30

^16*God’s Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God’s children. ^17*Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him; for if we share Christ’s suffering, we will also share his glory.

The Future Glory

¹⁸I consider that what we suffer at this present time cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. ¹⁹All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children. ^20*For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. Yet there was the hope ²¹that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God. ²²For we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth. ^23*But it is not just creation alone which groans; we who have the Spirit as the first of God’s gifts also groan within ourselves, as we wait for God to make us his children and^k set our whole being free. ²⁴For it was by hope that we were saved; but if we see what we hope for, then it is not really hope. For which of us hopes for something we see? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

²⁶In the same way the Spirit also comes to help us, weak as we are. For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express. ²⁷And God, who sees into our hearts, knows what the thought of the Spirit is; because the Spirit pleads with God on behalf of his people and in accordance with his will.

²⁸We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him,^l those whom he has called according to his purpose. ²⁹Those whom God had already chosen he also set apart to become like his Son, so that the Son would be the eldest brother in a large family. ³⁰And so those whom God set apart, he called; and those he called, he put right with himself, and he shared his glory with them.