Chapter 8

1So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to the Messiah Jesus.

2The law of the life-giving Spirit in the Messiah Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

3God did what his law could not do because human weakness kept it from accomplishing its purpose. God sent his own Son in a body like our sin-ruled bodies, to deal with sin. In that human body, God condemned sin,

4so that the law’s just requirement might be fulfilled in us. We do not live under the control of our self-centered human nature but follow the Spirit.

5Those controlled by their self-centered human nature set their minds on what it wants. Those directed by the Spirit set their minds on what the Spirit wants.

6A mind controlled by self-centered human nature leads to death, but a mind directed by the Spirit brings life and peace.

7A mind controlled by self-centered human nature is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, and it cannot do so.

8Those who remain under that nature’s control cannot please God.

9But you are not under the control of self-centered human nature. You are under the Spirit’s direction, if God’s Spirit truly lives in you. Anyone who does not have the Messiah’s Spirit does not belong to him.

10But if the Messiah lives in you, your body is destined to die because of sin, while your spirit has life because God has put you right with him.

11If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then the God who raised the Messiah Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because his Spirit lives in you.

12So then, brothers and sisters, we are under an obligation—but not to our self-centered human nature. We do not have to live under its control.

13If you live under its control, you are going to die. But if, by the Spirit, you put your body’s sinful actions to death, you will live.

14Everyone led by God’s Spirit is a child of God.

15You did not receive a spirit of slavery that makes you afraid again. You received the Spirit who adopts you as God’s children, and through him we cry out, “Abba—Father!”

16The Spirit himself confirms together with our own spirit that we are God’s children.

17And if we are his children, we are also heirs. We inherit from God and share the Messiah’s inheritance, if we share his suffering so that we may also share his honor.

18I consider our sufferings in the present time not worth comparing with the honor that is going to be revealed in us.

19All creation waits with intense longing for God’s children to be revealed.

20Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice but by the will of the one who subjected it. Yet he did so with hope:

21the hope that creation itself will be set free from slavery to decay and will share the glorious freedom of God’s children.

22We know that all creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth right up to the present.

23And creation is not alone. We ourselves, who have received the Spirit as the first taste of what is coming, groan inwardly. We are eagerly waiting for our adoption as God’s children to be completed—when our bodies are set free.

24We were saved with this hope. But hope directed toward something already seen is not really hope. Who hopes for something already in sight?

25But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently.

26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we should pray for, but the Spirit himself pleads with wordless groans.

27God, who searches people’s hearts, knows the Spirit’s intention, because the Spirit pleads for God’s people in harmony with God’s will.

28We know that everything works together toward good for those who love God, who have been called according to his purpose.

29Those God knew in advance, he also decided in advance would become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

30Those he chose for this beforehand, he also called. Those he called, he also put right with himself. And those he put right with himself, he also honored.

31What, then, should we say about all this? If God is for us, who can stand against us?

32God did not spare his own Son but handed him over for all of us. Since he gave us his Son, will he not also freely give us everything along with him?

33Who can bring a charge against the people God has chosen? God is the one who declares them to be in the right.

34Who can condemn them? The Messiah died and, more than that, was raised. He is at God’s right hand, the place of highest honor, and he pleads for us.

35Who can separate us from the Messiah’s love? Can suffering, hardship, persecution, hunger, having no clothes, danger, or violent death?

36As Scripture says, “Because we belong to you, we face death all day long. We are treated like sheep marked for slaughter.”

37But through the one who loved us, we win an overwhelming victory in all these things.

38I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor spiritual rulers, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

39neither anything above nor anything below, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from God’s love found in the Messiah Jesus, our Lord.