Jesus answered, "I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again."

Remember that as long as heaven and earth last, not the least point nor the smallest detail of the Law will be done away with---not until the end of all things.

(There was no one else who had devoted himself so completely to doing wrong in the LORD's sight as Ahab---all at the urging of his wife Jezebel.

The sins of the wicked are a trap. They get caught in the net of their own sin.

For I see that you are full of bitter envy and are a prisoner of sin."

And we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on his cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin.

Sin must no longer rule in your mortal bodies, so that you obey the desires of your natural self.

Surely you know that when you surrender yourselves as slaves to obey someone, you are in fact the slaves of the master you obey---either of sin, which results in death, or of obedience, which results in being put right with God.

(I use everyday language because of the weakness of your natural selves.) At one time you surrendered yourselves entirely as slaves to impurity and wickedness for wicked purposes. In the same way you must now surrender yourselves entirely as slaves of righteousness for holy purposes.

When you were the slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.

We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am a mortal, sold as a slave to sin.

Thanks be to God, who does this through our Lord Jesus Christ! This, then, is my condition: on my own I can serve God's law only with my mind, while my human nature serves the law of sin.

that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God.

At that time you followed the world's evil way; you obeyed the ruler of the spiritual powers in space, the spirit who now controls the people who disobey God.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, and wrong. We were slaves to passions and pleasures of all kinds. We spent our lives in malice and envy; others hated us and we hated them.

They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of destructive habits---for we are slaves of anything that has conquered us.

Whoever continues to sin belongs to the Devil, because the Devil has sinned from the very beginning. The Son of God appeared for this very reason, to destroy what the Devil had done.

Here is the clear difference between God's children and the Devil's children: those who do not do what is right or do not love others are not God's children.