8So now, those who are in Christ Jesus are not judged guilty. ⁿ ²Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made you ⁿ free from the law that brings sin and death. ³The 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 for sin, God used a human life to destroy sin. ⁴He 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.

⁵Those 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. ⁶If 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. ⁷When 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. ⁸Those people who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot please God.

⁹But 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. ¹⁰Your 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. ¹¹God 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 ⁿ his Spirit that lives in you.

¹²So, my brothers and sisters, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves or live the way our sinful selves want. ¹³If 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.

¹⁴The true children of God are those who let God’s Spirit lead them. ¹⁵The Spirit we received does not make us slaves again to fear; it makes us children of God. With that Spirit we cry out, “Father.” ⁿ ¹⁶And the Spirit himself joins with our spirits to say we are God’s children. ¹⁷If 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.

Our Future Glory

¹⁸The sufferings we have now are nothing compared to the great glory that will be shown to us. ¹⁹Everything God made is waiting with excitement for God to show his children’s glory completely. ²⁰Everything 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: ²¹that everything God made would be set free from ruin to have the freedom and glory that belong to God’s children.

²²We know that everything God made has been waiting until now in pain, like a woman ready to give birth. ²³Not 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. ²⁴We 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. ²⁵But we are hoping for something we do not have yet, and we are waiting for it patiently.

²⁶Also, 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. ²⁷God 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.

²⁸We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him. ⁿ They are the people he called, because that was his plan. ²⁹God knew them before he made the world, and he chose them to be like his Son so that Jesus would be the firstborn ⁿ of many brothers and sisters. ³⁰God 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.

God’s Love in Christ Jesus

³¹So what should we say about this? If God is for us, no one can defeat us. ³²He did not spare his own Son but gave him for us all. So with Jesus, God will surely give us all things. ³³Who can accuse the people God has chosen? No one, because God is the One who makes them right. ³⁴Who 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, appealing to God for us. ³⁵Can 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? ³⁶As 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.”

³⁷But in all these things we are completely victorious through God who showed his love for us. ³⁸Yes, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, ³⁹nothing 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.

God and the Jewish People

9I 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. ²I have great sorrow and always feel much sadness. ³I 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. ⁴They 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. ⁵They 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! ⁿ Amen.

⁶It is not that God failed to keep his promise to them. But only some of the people of Israel are truly God’s people, ⁿ ⁷and only some of Abraham’s ⁿ descendants are true children of Abraham. But God said to Abraham: “The descendants I promised you will be from Isaac.” ⁿ ⁸This 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. ⁹God’s promise to Abraham was this: “At the right time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.” ⁿ ¹⁰And that is not all. Rebekah’s sons had the same father, our father Isaac. ^11–12But before the two boys were born, God told Rebekah, “The older will serve the younger.” ⁿ 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. ¹³As the Scripture says, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.” ⁿ

¹⁴So what should we say about this? Is God unfair? In no way. ¹⁵God 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.” ⁿ ¹⁶So 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. ¹⁷The 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.” ⁿ ¹⁸So God shows mercy where he wants to show mercy, and he makes stubborn the people he wants to make stubborn.

¹⁹So one of you will ask me: “Then why does God blame us for our sins? Who can fight his will?” ²⁰You 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?” ²¹The 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.

²²It 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. ²³He 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, ²⁴and we are those people whom God called. He called us not from the Jews only but also from those who are not Jews. ²⁵As 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.’ ”

²⁷And 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,

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

²⁹It 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.” ⁿ

³⁰So 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. ³¹The people of Israel tried to follow a law to make themselves right with God. But they did not succeed, ³²because they tried to make themselves right by the things they did instead of trusting in…

Read in Logos

This passage has been shortened. Keep reading Romans 8–9 in Logos

Footnotes

nguilty Some Greek copies continue, “those who do not live in the power of their sinful selves, but in the power of the Spirit.”
nyou Some Greek copies read “me.”
nthrough Some Greek copies read “because of.”
n“Father” Literally, “Abba, Father.” Jewish children called their fathers “Abba.”
nWe … him. Some Greek copies read “We know that everything works together for good for those who love God.”
nfirstborn Here this probably means that Christ was the first in God’s family to share God’s glory.
nborn … forever! This can also mean “born. May God, who rules over all things, be praised forever!”
nGod’s people Literally, “Israel,” the people God chose to bring his blessings to the world.
nAbraham Most respected ancestor of the Jews. Every Jew hoped to see Abraham.
n“The descendants … Isaac.” Quotation from Genesis 21:12.
n“At … son.” Quotation from Genesis 18:10, 14.
n“The older … younger.” Quotation from Genesis 25:23.
n“I … Esau.” Quotation from Malachi 1:2–3.
n“I … mercy.” Quotation from Exodus 33:19.
n“I … earth.” Quotation from Exodus 9:16.
nSodom and Gomorrah Two cities that God destroyed because the people were so evil.