Surely you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you!

Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God;

How can God's temple come to terms with pagan idols? For we are the temple of the living God! As God himself has said, "I will make my home with my people and live among them; I will be their God, and they shall be my people."

You, too, are built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, the cornerstone being Christ Jesus himself.

In union with him you too are being built together with all the others into a place where God lives through his Spirit.

But Christ is faithful as the Son in charge of God's house. We are his house if we keep up our courage and our confidence in what we hope for.

I will make those who are victorious pillars in the temple of my God, and they will never leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven from my God. I will also write on them my new name.

But you are the chosen race, the King's priests, the holy nation, God's own people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his own marvelous light.

And you will be known as the priests of the LORD, The servants of our God. You will enjoy the wealth of the nations And be proud that it is yours.

I will make some of them priests and Levites.

and made us a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father. To Jesus Christ be the glory and power forever and ever! Amen.

You have made them a kingdom of priests to serve our God, and they shall rule on earth."

Happy and greatly blessed are those who are included in this first raising of the dead. The second death has no power over them; they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they will rule with him for a thousand years.

Let the giving of thanks be your sacrifice to God, and give the Almighty all that you promised.

Giving thanks is the sacrifice that honors me, and I will surely save all who obey me."

Receive my prayer as incense, my uplifted hands as an evening sacrifice.

Return to the LORD, and let this prayer be your offering to him: "Forgive all our sins and accept our prayer, and we will praise you as we have promised.

People from one end of the world to the other honor me. Everywhere they burn incense to me and offer acceptable sacrifices. All of them honor me!

You Samaritans do not really know whom you worship; but we Jews know whom we worship, because it is from the Jews that salvation comes.

God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is."

So then, my friends, because of God's great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer.

Perhaps my life's blood is to be poured out like an offering on the sacrifice that your faith offers to God. If that is so, I am glad and share my joy with you all.

Here, then, is my receipt for everything you have given me---and it has been more than enough! I have all I need now that Epaphroditus has brought me all your gifts. They are like a sweet-smelling offering to God, a sacrifice which is acceptable and pleasing to him.

Let us, then, always offer praise to God as our sacrifice through Jesus, which is the offering presented by lips that confess him as Lord.

Do not forget to do good and to help one another, because these are the sacrifices that please God.

Those who preach must preach God's messages; those who serve must serve with the strength that God gives them, so that in all things praise may be given to God through Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory and power forever and ever. Amen.

Your lives will be filled with the truly good qualities which only Jesus Christ can produce, for the glory and praise of God.

Here, then, is my receipt for everything you have given me---and it has been more than enough! I have all I need now that Epaphroditus has brought me all your gifts. They are like a sweet-smelling offering to God, a sacrifice which is acceptable and pleasing to him.

Everything you do or say, then, should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as you give thanks through him to God the Father.