²¹ for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless hearts were darkened.^(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) 18} they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.^(B)

⁵ Thus says the Lord:

¹⁵ They despised his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their ancestors and the warnings that he had given them. They went after false idols and became false; they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do as they did.^(A)

² For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,^(A)

⁷ He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”^(A)

⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,^[a] in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.^(A)