I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—

As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!

Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”

In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.

Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac.

and, “In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,

so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

Paul’s Plan to Visit Rome

But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you,