When people choose to follow the LORD,

He shows them the best way to live.

They will enjoy good things,

And their children will get the land God promised.

The LORD tells his secrets to his followers.

He teaches them about his agreement.

I always look to the LORD for help.

Only he can free me from my troubles.

The Lord said, “Should I tell Abraham what I am going to do now? Abraham’s children will certainly become a great and powerful nation. And all nations on earth will be blessed through him. I have chosen him so he would command his children and his descendants to live the way the Lord wants them to. I did this so they would live right and be fair. Then I, the Lord, will give Abraham what I promised him.”

I have told you these things so that you can have the same joy I have. I want your joy to be the fullest joy. “This is my command: Love each other as I have loved you. The greatest love a person can show is to die for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I don’t call you servants now. A servant does not know what his master is doing. But now I call you friends because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father. You did not choose me; I chose you. And I gave you this work, to go and produce fruit. I want you to produce fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you anything you ask for in my name. This is my command: Love each other.

I am not ashamed of the Good News. It is the power God uses to save everyone who believes—to save the Jews first, and then to save the non-Jews. The Good News shows how God makes people right with himself. God’s way of making people right with him begins and ends with faith. As the Scripture says, “The person who is made right with God by faith will live forever.” God’s anger is shown from heaven against all the evil and wrong things that people do. By their own evil lives they hide the truth. God shows his anger because everything that may be known about God has been made clear.

Yes, God has clearly shown them everything that may be known about him. There are things about God that people cannot see—his eternal power and all the things that make him God. But since the beginning of the world those things have been easy to understand. They are made clear by what God has made. So people have no excuse for the bad things they do. They knew God. But they did not give glory to God, and they did not thank him. Their thinking became useless. Their foolish minds were filled with darkness. They said they were wise, but they became fools.