So then, from now on be obedient to the LORD and stop being stubborn.

The LORD your God will give you and your descendants obedient hearts, so that you will love him with all your heart, and you will continue to live in that land.

Keep your covenant with me, your LORD, and dedicate yourselves to me, you people of Judah and Jerusalem. If you don't, my anger will burn like fire because of the evil things you have done. It will burn, and there will be no one to put it out."

Rather, the real Jew is the person who is a Jew on the inside, that is, whose heart has been circumcised, and this is the work of God's Spirit, not of the written Law. Such a person receives praise from God, not from human beings.

It is we, not they, who have received the true circumcision, for we worship God by means of his Spirit and rejoice in our life in union with Christ Jesus. We do not put any trust in external ceremonies.

"We heard him say, 'I will tear down this Temple which men have made, and after three days I will build one that is not made by men.' "

"But the Most High God does not live in houses built by human hands; as the prophet says,

God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.

For we know that when this tent we live in---our body here on earth---is torn down, God will have a house in heaven for us to live in, a home he himself has made, which will last forever.

You Gentiles by birth---called "the uncircumcised" by the Jews, who call themselves the circumcised (which refers to what men do to their bodies)---remember what you were in the past.

But Christ has already come as the High Priest of the good things that are already here. The tent in which he serves is greater and more perfect; it is not a tent made by human hands, that is, it is not a part of this created world.

For Christ did not go into a Holy Place made by human hands, which was a copy of the real one. He went into heaven itself, where he now appears on our behalf in the presence of God.

But now you must get rid of all these things: anger, passion, and hateful feelings. No insults or obscene talk must ever come from your lips.

Do not lie to one another, for you have put off the old self with its habits

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.

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.

A week later, when the time came for the baby to be circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name which the angel had given him before he had been conceived.

Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come.

so that it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. This life that I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.

But when the right time finally came, God sent his own Son. He came as the son of a human mother and lived under the Jewish Law,

to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might become God's children.

God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do.

At that time you were apart from Christ. You were foreigners and did not belong to God's chosen people. You had no part in the covenants, which were based on God's promises to his people, and you lived in this world without hope and without God.

For Christ himself has brought us peace by making Jews and Gentiles one people. With his own body he broke down the wall that separated them and kept them enemies.

By his death on the cross Christ destroyed their enmity; by means of the cross he united both races into one body and brought them back to God.

It is through Christ that all of us, Jews and Gentiles, are able to come in the one Spirit into the presence of the Father.