12 Brothers and sisters, in light of all I have shared with you about God’s mercies, I urge you to offer your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice to God, a sacred offering that brings Him pleasure; this is your reasonable, essential worship. ² Do not allow this world to mold you in its own image. Instead, be transformed from the inside out by renewing your mind. As a result, you will be able to discern what God wills and whatever God finds good, pleasing, and complete.

³ Because of the grace allotted to me, I can respectfully tell you not to think of yourselves as being more important than you are; devote your minds to sound judgment since God has assigned to each of us a measure of faith. ⁴ For in the same way that one body has so many different parts, each with different functions; ⁵ we, too—the many—are different parts that form one body in the Anointed One. Each one of us is joined with one another, and we become together what we could not be alone. ⁶ Since our gifts vary depending on the grace poured out on each of us, it is important that we exercise the gifts we have been given. If prophecy is your gift, then speak as a prophet according to your proportion of faith. ⁷ If service is your gift, then serve well. If teaching is your gift, then teach well. ⁸ If you have been given a voice of encouragement, then use it often. If giving is your gift, then be generous. If leading, then be eager to get started. If sharing God’s mercy, then be cheerful in sharing it.

⁹ Love others well, and don’t hide behind a mask; love authentically. Despise evil; pursue what is good as if your life depends on it. ¹⁰ Live in true devotion to one another, loving each other as sisters and brothers. Be first to honor others by putting them first. ¹¹ Do not slack in your faithfulness and hard work. Let your spirit be on fire, bubbling up and boiling over, as you serve the Lord. ¹² Do not forget to rejoice, for hope is always just around the corner. Hold up through the hard times that are coming, and devote yourselves to prayer. ¹³ Share what you have with the saints, so they lack nothing; take every opportunity to open your life and home to others.

¹⁴ If people mistreat or malign you, bless them. Always speak blessings, not curses. ¹⁵ If some have cause to celebrate, join in the celebration. And if others are weeping, join in that as well. ¹⁶ Work toward unity, and live in harmony with one another. Avoid thinking you are better than others or wiser than the rest; instead, embrace common people and ordinary tasks. ¹⁷ Do not retaliate with evil, regardless of the evil brought against you. Try to do what is good and right and honorable as agreed upon by all people. ¹⁸ If it is within your power, make peace with all people. ¹⁹ Again, my loved ones, do not seek revenge; instead, allow God’s wrath to make sure justice is served. Turn it over to Him. For the Scriptures say, “Revenge is Mine. I will settle all scores.”^{[a] 20} But consider this bit of wisdom: “If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink; because if you treat him kindly, it will be like heaping hot coals on top of his head.”^{[b] 21} Never let evil get the best of you; instead, overpower evil with the good.

13 It is important that all of us submit to the authorities who have charge over us because God establishes all authority in heaven and on the earth. ² Therefore, a person who rebels against authority rebels against the order He established, and people like that can expect to face certain judgment. ³ You see, if you do the right thing, you have nothing to be worried about from the rulers; but if you do what you know is wrong, the rulers will make sure you pay a price. Would you not rather live with a clear conscience than always have to be looking over your shoulder? Then keep doing what you know to be good and right, and they will publicly honor you.

⁴ Look at it this way: The ruler is a servant of God called to serve and benefit you. But he is also a servant of God executing wrath upon those who practice evil. If you do what is wrong, then you’d better be afraid because he wields the power of the sword and doesn’t make empty threats.

⁵ So submission is not optional; it’s required. But don’t just submit for the sake of avoiding punishment; submit and abide by the laws because your conscience leads you to do the right thing. ⁶ Pay your taxes for the same reason because the authorities are servants of God, giving their full attention to take care of these things. ⁷ Pay all of them what you owe. If you owe taxes, then pay. If you owe fees, then pay. In the same way, give honor and respect to those who deserve it.

⁸ Don’t owe anyone anything, with the exception of love to one another—that is a debt which never ends—because the person who loves others has fulfilled the law. ⁹ The commands given to you in the Scriptures—do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not take what is not yours, do not covet^[c]—and any other command you have heard are summarized in God’s instruction: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”^{[d] 10} Does love hurt anyone? Absolutely not. In fact, love achieves everything the law requires.

¹¹ And now consider this. You know well the times you are living in. It is time for you to wake up and see what is right before your eyes: for salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. ¹² The darkness of night is dissolving as dawn’s light draws near, so walk out on your old dark life and put on the armor of light. ¹³ May we all act as good and respectable people, living today the same way as we will in the day of His coming. Do not fall into patterns of dark living: wild partying, drunkenness, sexual depravity, decadent gratification, quarreling, and jealousy. ¹⁴ Instead, wrap yourselves in the Lord Jesus, God’s Anointed, and do not fuel your sinful imagination by indulging your self-seeking desire for the pleasures of the flesh.

14 It’s high time that you welcome all people weak in the faith without debating and disputing their opinions.

² Here’s the issue: One person believes that nothing’s off the menu; he’ll eat any food put before him. But there’s another believer—we’ll call him the weaker—who eats only vegetables because the meat is tainted through contact with an idol. ³ If you are an eater of all things, do not be condescending to your vegetarian brother or sister. In turn, those who abstain from certain foods on religious principles should not judge your brothers and sisters who eat meat—if God has accepted them, you have no reason to reject them. ⁴ How could you think for a moment that you have the right to judge another person’s servant? Each servant answers to his own Master, and he will either stand or fall in His presence. The good news is that he will stand because the Master is able to make it so.

⁵ There may be a believer who regards one day as more sacred than any other, while another views every day as sacred as the next. In these matters, all must reach their own conclusions and satisfy their own minds. ⁶ If someone observes a day as holy, he observes it in honor of the Lord. If another eats a particular diet, he eats in honor of the Lord since he begins by giving thanks! If yet another abstains from that same food, he abstains out of respect for the Lord and begins his meal by thanking God too. ⁷ The truth is that none of us live for ourselves, and none die for ourselves. ⁸ For if we live, we live for the Lord. If we die, we die for the Lord. So in both life and death, we belong to the Lord. ⁹ The Anointed One, the Liberating King, died and returned to life to make this a reality: through His death and resurrection, He became Lord of the living and the dead.

¹⁰ So how is it that you continue to judge your brother? How is it possible for you to look down on a sister? We will all stand before the judgment seat of God. ¹¹ For it is written,

¹² So every one of us, regardless of our eating habits, should expect to give an account for our own lives to God.

¹³ In light of this, we must resolve never to judge others and never to place an obstacle or impediment in their paths that could cause them to trip and fall. ¹⁴ Personally I have been completely convinced that in Jesus, our Lord, no object in and of itself is unclean; but if my fellow believers are convinced that something is unclean, then it is unclean to them. ¹⁵ If the food you eat harms your brother, then you have failed to love him. Do not let what you eat tear down your brother; after all, the Anointed laid down His life for him. ¹⁶ Do not allow people to slander something you find to be good ¹⁷ because the kingdom of God is not about eating and drinking. When God reigns, the order of the day is redeeming justice, true peace, and joy made possible by the Holy Spirit. ¹⁸ You see, those who serve the Anointed in this way will be welcomed into the whole acceptance of God and valued by all men. ¹⁹ Join us, and pursue a life that creates peace and builds up our brothers and sisters.

²⁰ Do not sacrifice God’s work for the sake of certain foods. It is true that all things are clean, but it’s wrong to eat if you know that eating something will cause offense. ²¹ It is right for you to abstain from certain meats and wine (or anything else for that matter) if it prevents your brother from falling in his faith. ²² Hold on to what you believe about these issues, but keep them between you and God. A happy man does not judge himself by the lifestyle he endorses. ²³ But a man who decides for himself what to eat is condemned because he is not living by his faith. Any action not consistent with faith is sin.

15 So now what? We who are strong are not just to satisfy our own desires. We are called to carry the weaknesses of those who are not strong. ² Each of us must strive to please our neighbors, pursuing their welfare so they will become strong. ³ The Anointed One Himself is our model for this kind of living, for He did not live to please Himself. And as the Scriptures declared, “When they insult You, they insult me.”^{[f] 4} You see, everything written in the days of old was recorded to give us instructions for living. We find encouragement through the Scriptures and a call to perseverance that will produce hopeful living. ⁵ I pray that our God, who calls you and gives you perseverance and encouragement, will join all of you together to share one mind according to Jesus the Anointed. ⁶ In this unity, you will share one voice as you glorify the one True God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, our Liberating King.

⁷ So accept one another in the same way the Anointed has accepted you so that God will get the praise He is due. ⁸ For, as I am fond of saying, the Anointed One has become a servant of the Jews^[g] in order to demonstrate God’s truth. Effectively this confirms the promises He made to our ancestors ⁹ and causes the non-Jewish nations to glorify God for His mercy. As the Scriptures say,

¹⁰ Again the Scriptures say,

¹¹ And again,

¹² Again Isaiah says,

¹³ I pray that God, the source of all hope, will infuse your lives with an abundance of joy and peace in the midst of your faith so that your hope will overflow through the power of the Holy Spirit.