¹⁴ Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's children. ^15 (A)For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, “Father! my Father!” ¹⁶ God's Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God's children. ¹⁷ Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him; for if we share Christ's suffering, we will also share his glory.

The Future Glory

^18 (B)I consider that what we suffer at this present time cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children. ^20 (C)For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. Yet there was the hope ²¹ that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God. ²² For we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth. ^23 (D)But it is not just creation alone which groans; we who have the Spirit as the first of God's gifts also groan within ourselves as we wait for God to make us his children and^[a] set our whole being free.