⁵⁰ What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.^(A)

¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.^(A)

The Old Life and the New

¹⁷ Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer walk as the^[a] gentiles walk, in the futility of their minds;^(A)

The Works of the Flesh

¹⁶ Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.^(A)

³ Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”^{[a](A) 4} Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.^{(B) 6} What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

⁴ I am saying this so that no one may deceive you with plausible arguments.

¹⁷ My point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.^(A)

⁶ The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.^(A)

5 For we know that, if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.^(A)

²⁹ I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none,^(A)