I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, Christ lives in me; the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.
there the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to prevent them seeing the light thrown by the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.
in which you moved as you followed the course of this world, under the sway of the prince of the air — the spirit which is at present active within those sons of disobedience
so as to strengthen your hearts and make them blameless in holiness before our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. [Amen.]
Instead of being moulded to this world, have your mind renewed, and so be transformed in nature, able to make out what the will of God is, namely, what is good and acceptable to him and perfect.
and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the first-born from the dead, and the prince over the kings of earth; to him who loves us and has loosed us from our sins by shedding his blood —
singing a new song: "Thou deservest to take the scroll and open its seals, for thou wast slain and by shedding thy blood hast ransomed for God men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation;
Christ himself died for sins, once for all, a just man for unjust men, that he might bring us near to God; in the flesh he was put to death but he came to life in the Spirit.
(Wanton creatures! do you not know that the world's friendship means enmity to God? Whoever, then, chooses to be the world's friend, turns enemy to God.
how much more shall the blood of Christ, who in the spirit of the eternal offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve a living God?
For we have to struggle, not with blood and flesh but with the angelic Rulers, the angelic Authorities, the potentates of the dark present, the spirit-forces of evil in the heavenly sphere.
in the Christ in whom we have had our heritage allotted us (as was decreed in the design of him who carries out everything according to the counsel of his will),
For God has done what the Law, weakened here by the flesh, could not do; by sending his own Son in the guise of sinful flesh, to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
I can do nothing of my own accord; I pass judgment on men as I am taught by God, and my judgment is just, because my aim is not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
After that I looked, and there was a great host whom no one could count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clad in white robes, with palm-branches in their hands;
Then he took a loaf, and after thanking God he broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This means my body given up for your sake; do this in memory of me."
As for him who is sown 'among thorns,' that is the man who listens to the word, but the worry of the world and the delight of being rich choke the word; so it proves unfruitful.