All of us were like sheep that were lost, each of us going his own way. But the LORD made the punishment fall on him, the punishment all of us deserved.

All of us have been sinful; even our best actions are filthy through and through. Because of our sins we are like leaves that wither and are blown away by the wind.

No one turns to you in prayer; no one goes to you for help. You have hidden yourself from us and have abandoned us because of our sins.

"We have sinned, we have been evil, we have done wrong. We have rejected what you commanded us to do and have turned away from what you showed us was right.

You, Lord, always do what is right, but we have always brought disgrace on ourselves. This is true of all of us who live in Judea and in Jerusalem and of all the Israelites whom you scattered in countries near and far because they were unfaithful to you.

You are merciful and forgiving, although we have rebelled against you.

Well then, are we Jews in any better condition than the Gentiles? Not at all! I have already shown that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.

no one who is wise or who worships God.

Their words are full of deadly deceit; wicked lies roll off their tongues, and dangerous threats, like snake's poison, from their lips;

They are quick to hurt and kill;

They have not known the path of peace,

Now we know that everything in the Law applies to those who live under the Law, in order to stop all human excuses and bring the whole world under God's judgment.

Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts

Some of you were like that. But you have been purified from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Indeed, we are Jews by birth and not "Gentile sinners," as they are called.

Yet we know that a person is put right with God only through faith in Jesus Christ, never by doing what the Law requires. We, too, have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be put right with God through our faith in Christ, and not by doing what the Law requires. For no one is put right with God by doing what the Law requires.

But the scripture says that the whole world is under the power of sin; and so the gift which is promised on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ is given to those who believe.

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.

You have spent enough time in the past doing what the heathen like to do. Your lives were spent in indecency, lust, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and the disgusting worship of idols.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make a liar out of God, and his word is not in us.

In the Lord's name, then, I warn you: do not continue to live like the heathen, whose thoughts are worthless

They have lost all feeling of shame; they give themselves over to vice and do all sorts of indecent things without restraint.

In the past he allowed all people to go their own way.

God has overlooked the times when people did not know him, but now he commands all of them everywhere to turn away from their evil ways.

For he has fixed a day in which he will judge the whole world with justice by means of a man he has chosen. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising that man from death!"

As for you Gentiles, you disobeyed God in the past; but now you have received God's mercy because the Jews were disobedient.

At one time you were not God's people, but now you are his people; at one time you did not know God's mercy, but now you have received his mercy.

However, the command I now write you is new, because its truth is seen in Christ and also in you. For the darkness is passing away, and the real light is already shining.

So get rid of your old self, which made you live as you used to---the old self that was being destroyed by its deceitful desires.

but the worries about this life, the love for riches, and all other kinds of desires crowd in and choke the message, and they don't bear fruit.

You are the children of your father, the Devil, and you want to follow your father's desires. From the very beginning he was a murderer and has never been on the side of truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he is only doing what is natural to him, because he is a liar and the father of all lies.

And so God has given those people over to do the filthy things their hearts desire, and they do shameful things with each other.

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

But take up the weapons of the Lord Jesus Christ, and stop paying attention to your sinful nature and satisfying its desires.

What I say is this: let the Spirit direct your lives, and you will not satisfy the desires of the human nature.

If the Spirit leads you, then you are not subject to the Law.

in worship of idols and witchcraft. People become enemies and they fight; they become jealous, angry, and ambitious. They separate into parties and groups;

But the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have put to death their human nature with all its passions and desires.

But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and are caught in the trap of many foolish and harmful desires, which pull them down to ruin and destruction.

Where do all the fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your desires for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you.

And when you ask, you do not receive it, because your motives are bad; you ask for things to use for your own pleasures.

Be obedient to God, and do not allow your lives to be shaped by those desires you had when you were still ignorant.

I appeal to you, my friends, as strangers and refugees in this world! Do not give in to bodily passions, which are always at war against the soul.

From now on, then, you must live the rest of your earthly lives controlled by God's will and not by human desires.

They make proud and stupid statements, and use immoral bodily lusts to trap those who are just beginning to escape from among people who live in error.

Everything that belongs to the world---what the sinful self desires, what people see and want, and everything in this world that people are so proud of---none of this comes from the Father; it all comes from the world.

These people are always grumbling and blaming others; they follow their own evil desires; they brag about themselves and flatter others in order to get their own way.

They said to you, "When the last days come, people will appear who will make fun of you, people who follow their own godless desires."

And so people become enemies of God when they are controlled by their human nature; for they do not obey God's law, and in fact they cannot obey it.

Those who obey their human nature cannot please God.

All these promises are made to us, my dear friends. So then, let us purify ourselves from everything that makes body or soul unclean, and let us be completely holy by living in awe of God.

What human nature does is quite plain. It shows itself in immoral, filthy, and indecent actions;

they are envious, get drunk, have orgies, and do other things like these. I warn you now as I have before: those who do these things will not possess the Kingdom of God.

They did not become God's children by natural means, that is, by being born as the children of a human father; God himself was their Father.

When Adam was 130 years old, he had a son who was like him, and he named him Seth.

When the LORD saw how wicked everyone on earth was and how evil their thoughts were all the time,

The odor of the sacrifice pleased the LORD, and he said to himself, "Never again will I put the earth under a curse because of what people do; I know that from the time they are young their thoughts are evil. Never again will I destroy all living beings, as I have done this time.

Nothing clean can ever come from anything as unclean as human beings.

Can any human being be really pure? Can anyone be right with God?

And we drink evil as if it were water; yes, we are corrupt; we are worthless.

Can anyone be righteous or pure in God's sight?

I have been evil from the day I was born; from the time I was conceived, I have been sinful.

For from the inside, from your heart, come the evil ideas which lead you to do immoral things, to rob, kill,

commit adultery, be greedy, and do all sorts of evil things; deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride, and folly---

There was a Jewish leader named Nicodemus, who belonged to the party of the Pharisees.

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

"I am telling you the truth," replied Jesus, "that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.

Sin came into the world through one man, and his sin brought death with it. As a result, death has spread to the whole human race because everyone has sinned.

But from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, death ruled over all human beings, even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam did when he disobeyed God's command. Adam was a figure of the one who was to come.

And there is a difference between God's gift and the sin of one man. After the one sin, came the judgment of "Guilty"; but after so many sins, comes the undeserved gift of "Not guilty!"

So then, as the one sin condemned all people, in the same way the one righteous act sets all people free and gives them life.

I know that good does not live in me---that is, in my human nature. For even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it.

Indeed, we are Jews by birth and not "Gentile sinners," as they are called.

Yet we know that a person is put right with God only through faith in Jesus Christ, never by doing what the Law requires. We, too, have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be put right with God through our faith in Christ, and not by doing what the Law requires. For no one is put right with God by doing what the Law requires.

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.

And the same is true of what God has done. He wanted to show his anger and to make his power known. But he was very patient in enduring those who were the objects of his anger, who were doomed to destruction.

Well then, are we Jews in any better condition than the Gentiles? Not at all! I have already shown that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.

God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all:

everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence.

Who made you superior to others? Didn't God give you everything you have? Well, then, how can you boast, as if what you have were not a gift?