The promises of God through his prophets are for you, and you share in the covenant which God made with your ancestors. As he said to Abraham, 'Through your descendants I will bless all the people on earth.'

And so God chose his Servant and sent him to you first, to bless you by making every one of you turn away from your wicked ways."

"I will keep my promise to you and to your descendants in future generations as an everlasting covenant. I will be your God and the God of your descendants.

I will give to you and to your descendants this land in which you are now a foreigner. The whole land of Canaan will belong to your descendants forever, and I will be their God."

May the LORD give you children--- you and your descendants!

May you be blessed by the LORD, who made heaven and earth!

I will give them a single purpose in life: to honor me for all time, for their own good and the good of their descendants.

I will make an eternal covenant with them. I will never stop doing good things for them, and I will make them fear me with all their heart, so that they will never turn away from me.

They will live on the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where their ancestors lived. They will live there forever, and so will their children and all their descendants. A king like my servant David will rule them forever.

"Afterward I will pour out my Spirit on everyone: your sons and daughters will proclaim my message; your old people will have dreams, and your young people will see visions.

If the first piece of bread is given to God, then the whole loaf is his also; and if the roots of a tree are offered to God, the branches are his also.

Some of the branches of the cultivated olive tree have been broken off, and a branch of a wild olive tree has been joined to it. You Gentiles are like that wild olive tree, and now you share the strong spiritual life of the Jews.

For the unbelieving husband is made acceptable to God by being united to his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made acceptable to God by being united to her Christian husband. If this were not so, their children would be like pagan children; but as it is, they are acceptable to God.

The Jewish believers who had come from Joppa with Peter were amazed that God had poured out his gift of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles also.

And when I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came down on them just as on us at the beginning.

It is clear that God gave those Gentiles the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; who was I, then, to try to stop God!"

When they arrived in Antioch, they gathered the people of the church together and told them about all that God had done with them and how he had opened the way for the Gentiles to believe.

They were sent on their way by the church; and as they went through Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported how the Gentiles had turned to God; this news brought great joy to all the believers.

And God, who knows the thoughts of everyone, showed his approval of the Gentiles by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he had to us.

Simon has just explained how God first showed his care for the Gentiles by taking from among them a people to belong to him.

From east to west everyone will fear him and his great power. He will come like a rushing river, like a strong wind.

But now, in union with Christ Jesus you, who used to be far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

He abolished the Jewish Law with its commandments and rules, in order to create out of the two races one new people in union with himself, in this way making peace.

So Christ came and preached the Good News of peace to all---to you Gentiles, who were far away from God, and to the Jews, who were near to him.

So then, you Gentiles are not foreigners or strangers any longer; you are now citizens together with God's people and members of the family of God.

He is the one who holds the whole building together and makes it grow into a sacred temple dedicated to the Lord.

In past times human beings were not told this secret, but God has revealed it now by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets.

I was made a servant of the gospel by God's special gift, which he gave me through the working of his power.

But all who ask the LORD for help will be saved. As the LORD has said, 'Some in Jerusalem will escape; those whom I choose will survive.' "

And so those whom God set apart, he called; and those he called, he put right with himself, and he shared his glory with them.

For we are the people he called, not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles.

For God does not change his mind about whom he chooses and blesses.

I ask that your minds may be opened to see his light, so that you will know what is the hope to which he has called you, how rich are the wonderful blessings he promises his people,

There is one body and one Spirit, just as there is one hope to which God has called you.

That is why we always pray for you. We ask our God to make you worthy of the life he has called you to live. May he fulfill by his power all your desire for goodness and complete your work of faith.

We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the first to be saved by the Spirit's power to make you his holy people and by your faith in the truth.

God called you to this through the Good News we preached to you; he called you to possess your share of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He saved us and called us to be his own people, not because of what we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace. He gave us this grace by means of Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

My Christian friends, who also have been called by God! Think of Jesus, whom God sent to be the High Priest of the faith we profess.

For this reason Christ is the one who arranges a new covenant, so that those who have been called by God may receive the eternal blessings that God has promised. This can be done because there has been a death which sets people free from the wrongs they did while the first covenant was in effect.

But after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who calls you to share his eternal glory in union with Christ, will himself perfect you and give you firmness, strength, and a sure foundation.

God's divine power has given us everything we need to live a truly religious life through our knowledge of the one who called us to share in his own glory and goodness.

So then, my friends, try even harder to make God's call and his choice of you a permanent experience; if you do so, you will never abandon your faith.

They will fight against the Lamb; but the Lamb, together with his called, chosen, and faithful followers, will defeat them, because he is Lord of lords and King of kings."

Then the angel said to me, "Write this: Happy are those who have been invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb." And the angel added, "These are the true words of God."