As for you, my friends, you were called to be free. But do not let this freedom become an excuse for letting your physical desires control you. Instead, let love make you serve one another.

For what our human nature wants is opposed to what the Spirit wants, and what the Spirit wants is opposed to what our human nature wants. These two are enemies, and this means that you cannot do what you want to do.

If you plant in the field of your natural desires, from it you will gather the harvest of death; if you plant in the field of the Spirit, from the Spirit you will gather the harvest of eternal life.

as others do; I have obeyed your command and have not followed paths of violence.

A person is born physically of human parents, but is born spiritually of the Spirit.

For when we lived according to our human nature, the sinful desires stirred up by the Law were at work in our bodies, and all we did ended in death.

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.

Thanks be to God, who does this through our Lord Jesus Christ! This, then, is my condition: on my own I can serve God's law only with my mind, while my human nature serves the law of sin.

What the Law could not do, because human nature was weak, God did. He condemned sin in human nature by sending his own Son, who came with a nature like our sinful nature, to do away with sin.

Those who live as their human nature tells them to, have their minds controlled by what human nature wants. Those who live as the Spirit tells them to, have their minds controlled by what the Spirit wants.

But you do not live as your human nature tells you to; instead, you live as the Spirit tells you to---if, in fact, God's Spirit lives in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

For if you live according to your human nature, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you put to death your sinful actions, you will live.

because you still live as the people of this world live. When there is jealousy among you and you quarrel with one another, doesn't this prove that you belong to this world, living by its standards?

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

All Israel's leaders trust in their own strength and commit murder.

You have no respect for the holy places, and you don't keep the Sabbath.

Some of them sleep with their father's wife. Some force women to have intercourse with them during their period.

Some of your people murder for pay. Some charge interest on the loans they make to other Israelites and get rich by taking advantage of them. They have forgotten me." The Sovereign LORD has spoken.

But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these are the things that make you ritually unclean.

For from your heart come the evil ideas which lead you to kill, commit adultery, and do other immoral things; to rob, lie, and slander others.

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

all these evil things come from inside you and make you unclean."

They know God, but they do not give him the honor that belongs to him, nor do they thank him. Instead, their thoughts have become complete nonsense, and their empty minds are filled with darkness.

instead of worshiping the immortal God, they worship images made to look like mortals or birds or animals or reptiles.

They exchange the truth about God for a lie; they worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever! Amen.

In the same way the men give up natural sexual relations with women and burn with passion for each other. Men do shameful things with each other, and as a result they bring upon themselves the punishment they deserve for their wrongdoing.

They are filled with all kinds of wickedness, evil, greed, and vice; they are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, deceit, and malice. They gossip

they have no conscience; they do not keep their promises, and they show no kindness or pity for others.

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

or who steal or are greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves---none of these will possess God's Kingdom.

I am afraid that when I get there I will find you different from what I would like you to be and you will find me different from what you would like me to be. I am afraid that I will find quarreling and jealousy, hot tempers and selfishness, insults and gossip, pride and disorder.

I am afraid that the next time I come my God will humiliate me in your presence, and I shall weep over many who sinned in the past and have not repented of the immoral things they have done---their lust and their sexual sins.

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.

Since you are God's people, it is not right that any matters of sexual immorality or indecency or greed should even be mentioned among you.

You may be sure that no one who is immoral, indecent, or greedy (for greed is a form of idolatry) will ever receive a share in the Kingdom of Christ and of God.

You must put to death, then, the earthly desires at work in you, such as sexual immorality, indecency, lust, evil passions, and greed (for greed is a form of idolatry).

At one time you yourselves used to live according to such desires, when your life was dominated by them.

It must be remembered, of course, that laws are made, not for good people, but for lawbreakers and criminals, for the godless and sinful, for those who are not religious or spiritual, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers,

for the immoral, for sexual perverts, for kidnappers, for those who lie and give false testimony or who do anything else contrary to sound doctrine.

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.

But if in your heart you are jealous, bitter, and selfish, don't sin against the truth by boasting of your wisdom.

Such wisdom does not come down from heaven; it belongs to the world, it is unspiritual and demonic.

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.

And now the heathen are surprised when you do not join them in the same wild and reckless living, and so they insult you.

But cowards, traitors, perverts, murderers, the immoral, those who practice magic, those who worship idols, and all liars---the place for them is the lake burning with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."

But outside the city are the perverts and those who practice magic, the immoral and the murderers, those who worship idols and those who are liars both in words and deeds.