²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.^(A)

²² “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,^[a] your whole body will be full of light. ²³ But if your eyes are unhealthy,^[b] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity

¹⁸ The wrath of God^(A) is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.^{(B) 20} For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made,^(C) so that people are without excuse.^(D)

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.^{(E) 22} Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools^{(F) 23} and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images^(G) made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over^(H) in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.^{(I) 25} They exchanged the truth about God for a lie,^(J) and worshiped and served created things^(K) rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.^(L) Amen.^(M)

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over^(A) to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,^{(B) 30} slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;^{(C) 31} they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love,^(D) no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death,^(E) they not only continue to do these very things but also approve^(F) of those who practice them.

⁵ But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath^(A), when his righteous judgment^(B) will be revealed. ⁶ God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”^{[a](C) 7} To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor^(D) and immortality,^(E) he will give eternal life.^{(F) 8} But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil,^(G) there will be wrath and anger.^{(H) 9} There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil:^(I) first for the Jew, then for the Gentile;^{(J) 10} but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.^(K)

¹⁴ Then we will no longer be infants,^(A) tossed back and forth by the waves,^(B) and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.^{(C) 15} Instead, speaking the truth in love,^(D) we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head,^(E) that is, Christ. ¹⁶ From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows^(F) and builds itself up^(G) in love,^(H) as each part does its work.

Instructions for Christian Living

¹⁷ So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer^(I) live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.^{(J) 18} They are darkened in their understanding^(K) and separated from the life of God^(L) because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.^{(M) 19} Having lost all sensitivity,^(N) they have given themselves over^(O) to sensuality^(P) so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.