²⁹ He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went.

²⁸ Because they considered and turned away from all the transgressions that they had committed, they shall surely live; they shall not die. ²⁹ Yet the house of Israel says, “The way of the Lord is unfair.” O house of Israel, are my ways unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair?

³⁰ Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin.^{[a](A) 31} Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel?^{(B) 32} For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.^(C)

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) 18} they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.^{(B) 19} They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

From Death to Life

2 You were dead through the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world,^[a] following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.^{[b](A) 3} All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, doing the will of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else,^{(B) 4} but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us^{(C) 5} even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ^[c]—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places^[d] in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— ⁹ not the result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them.^(D)

One in Christ

¹¹ So then, remember that at one time you gentiles by birth,^[e] called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a circumcision made in the flesh by human hands^(E)— ¹² remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.^{(F) 13} But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.^(G)

¹¹ And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ^[a] and in the Spirit of our God.^(A)

²⁰ but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of Judea, and also to the gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance.^(A)

¹⁷ But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! ¹⁸ I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;

³¹ Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.^(A)

² “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”^{[a](A) 3} This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

⁴ Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.^{(C) 5} Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going out to him, ⁶ and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.^(D)

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his^[b] baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?^{(E) 8} Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance,^(F)