Because those people refuse to keep in mind the true knowledge about God, he has given them over to corrupted minds, so that they do the things that they should not do.

and speak evil of one another; they are hateful to God, insolent, proud, and boastful; they think of more ways to do evil; they disobey their parents;

We were God's enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son. Now that we are God's friends, how much more will we be saved by Christ's life!

Do not bow down to any idol or worship it, because I am the LORD your God and I tolerate no rivals. I bring punishment on those who hate me and on their descendants down to the third and fourth generation.

A prophet, Jehu son of Hanani, went to meet the king and said to him, "Do you think it is right to help those who are wicked and to take the side of those who hate the LORD? What you have done has brought the LORD's anger on you.

Fools say to themselves, "There is no God." They are all corrupt, and they have done terrible things; there is no one who does what is right.

The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I keep telling it that its ways are bad.

Whoever hates me hates my Father also.

They would not have been guilty of sin if I had not done among them the things that no one else ever did; as it is, they have seen what I did, and they hate both me and my Father.

and whose minds are in the dark. They have no part in the life that God gives, for they are completely ignorant and stubborn.

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

At one time you were far away from God and were his enemies because of the evil things you did and thought.

they will be treacherous, reckless, and swollen with pride; they will love pleasure rather than God;

Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.

Do not love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you do not love the Father.

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.

God did this so that the righteous demands of the Law might be fully satisfied in us who live according to the Spirit, and not according to human nature.

Does this mean that by this faith we do away with the Law? No, not at all; instead, we uphold the Law.

Shall we say, then, that the Law itself is sinful? Of course not! But it was the Law that made me know what sin is. If the Law had not said, "Do not desire what belongs to someone else," I would not have known such a desire.

I myself was once alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life,

Sin found its chance, and by means of the commandment it deceived me and killed me.

But does this mean that what is good caused my death? By no means! It was sin that did it; by using what is good, sin brought death to me, in order that its true nature as sin might be revealed. And so, by means of the commandment sin is shown to be even more terribly sinful.

So then, whoever disobeys even the least important of the commandments and teaches others to do the same, will be least in the Kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, whoever obeys the Law and teaches others to do the same, will be great in the Kingdom of heaven.

In the same way, when working with Gentiles, I live like a Gentile, outside the Jewish Law, in order to win Gentiles. This does not mean that I don't obey God's law; I am really under Christ's law.

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

humility, and self-control. There is no law against such things as these.

Now, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel in the days to come, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

Can people change the color of their skin, or a leopard remove its spots? If they could, then you that do nothing but evil could learn to do what is right.

You snakes---how can you say good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Whoever does not have the Spirit cannot receive the gifts that come from God's Spirit. Such a person really does not understand them, and they seem to be nonsense, because their value can be judged only on a spiritual basis.

They want to look for nothing but the chance to commit adultery; their appetite for sin is never satisfied. They lead weak people into a trap. Their hearts are trained to be greedy. They are under God's curse!