14 Those who are led by God’s spirit, these people, are also sons of God. 15 You did not receive a spirit of servitude, enslaving you again to fear, but you received a spirit of adoption by means of which we cry “Abba, Father.” 16 The same spirit [as Jesus’s] testifies through the spirit that is a part of us that we are children of God. 17a And if we are children, then we are also heirs—heirs on the one hand of God, and fellow heirs on the other hand with the Messiah.
17b Now, if we suffer together with him the result will be that we are also glorified together with him. 18 Indeed, I hold that any sufferings in the present age are not really worthy of comparison with the shining glory that will be revealed within us. 19 An extraordinarily eager creation is also waiting for this revelation of God’s sons 20 because creation was subjected to futility, unwillingly, because of the one who subjected it, in the hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from the servile drudgery of decay into the freedom of the shining glory that belongs to the children of God. 22 So we know that all of creation is weeping and at times screaming together [from that moment of subjection] up to this very moment. 23 And even we who possess the deposit of spirit within us cry in distress while we wait for the final liberation of our bodies from servitude. 24 But we were saved in hope. And hope that is visible is not hope. I mean, who lives in hope for what they can see right in front of them? 25 But if we have placed our hope in something we cannot yet see, we wait patiently. 26 In a similar vein, we are helped in our frailty by the spirit. We don’t necessarily know the right way to pray. But the spirit itself prays in that place of distress that lies beyond words. 27 And the one who searches hearts knows the intentions of the spirit because it is praying for the purified followers of Jesus within God.
28 Now we know that God is working out everything for the good for the sake of those who love God and are being called in accordance with his plans. 29 We know that those whom he knows in advance he also appoints in advance to be conformed to the image of his son, ultimately so that his son should be the firstborn among many siblings. 30 Those he appoints in advance he also calls, and those he calls he also delivers, and those he delivers he gifts with shining immortality. 31 So what are we going to say about all these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 How will the one who “did not spare his own son” but delivered him up for us all not also gift everything to us together with him? 33 Who will bring serious charges against God’s chosen? God is the one who commands that we be released. 34 Who is sentencing us to death? The Messiah, Jesus, is the one who has died for us, and more than this, the one who was raised from the dead for us, the one who is enthroned at the right hand of God, and the one who is there praying for us. 35 What can separate us from the love of God? Can suffering, or crushing, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or violence? 36 As it is written in Scripture, “for your sake we are being given over to death the whole of the day; we are considered mere sheep destined for slaughter.” 37 Yet in all these situations we are more than triumphant through the one who loves us. 38 So I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor heavenly rulers, neither the present nor the future, that no powers, 39 no things in the heights, no things in the depths, or anything else within creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is working through our Messiah, Jesus, our heavenly ruler.