⁷ For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will.

¹⁴ But people who aren’t spiritual^[a] can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.

Do Not Love This World

¹⁵ Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. ¹⁶ For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.

⁴ You adulterers!^[a] Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.

¹⁸ Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. ¹⁹ They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.

²² I love God’s law with all my heart.

⁴ They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God.

²¹ This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.

⁴ He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.