12. So, my brothers, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves. We must not live the way our sinful selves want.
13. If you use your lives to do the wrong things your sinful selves want, then you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit’s help to stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, then you will have true life.
14. The true children of God are those who let God’s Spirit lead them.
15. The Spirit that we received is not a spirit that makes us slaves again to fear. The Spirit that we have makes us children of God. And with that Spirit we say, “Father, dear Father.”
16. And the Spirit himself joins with our spirits to say that we are God’s children.
17. If we are God’s children, then we will receive the blessings God has for us. We will receive these things from God together with Christ. But we must suffer as Christ suffered, and then we will have glory as Christ has glory.
18. We have sufferings now. But the sufferings we have now are nothing compared to the great glory that will be given to us.
19. Everything that God made is waiting with excitement for the time when God will show the world who his children are. The whole world wants very much for that to happen.
20. Everything that God made was changed to become useless. This was not by its own wish. It happened because God wanted it. But there was this hope:
21. that everything God made would be set free from ruin. There was hope that everything God made would have the freedom and glory that belong to God’s children.
22. We know that everything God made has been waiting until now in pain, like a woman ready to give birth.
23. Not only the world, but we also have been waiting with pain inside us. We have the Spirit as the first part of God’s promise. So we are waiting for God to finish making us his own children. I mean we are waiting for our bodies to be made free.
24. We were saved, and we have this hope. If we see what we are waiting for, then that is not really hope. People do not hope for something they already have.
25. But we are hoping for something that we do not have yet. We are waiting for it patiently.
26. Also, the Spirit helps us. We are very weak, but the Spirit helps us with our weakness. We do not know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit himself speaks to God for us, even begs God for us. The Spirit speaks to God with deep feelings that words cannot explain.
27. God can see what is in people’s hearts. And he knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit speaks to God for his people in the way that God wants.
28. We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him. They are the people God called, because that was his plan.
29. God knew them before he made the world. And God chose them to be like his Son. Then Jesus would be the firstborn of many brothers.
30. God planned for them to be like his Son. And those he planned to be like his Son, he also called. And those he called, he also made right with him. And those he made right, he also glorified.
31. So what should we say about this? If God is for us, then no one can defeat us.
32. God let even his own Son suffer for us. God gave his Son for us all. So with Jesus, God will surely give us all things.