8 ¹⁸ For I reckon that the sufferings we now endure bear no comparison with the splendour, as yet unrevealed, which is in store for us. 8 ¹⁹ For the created universe waits with eager expectation for God's sons to be revealed. 8 ²⁰ It was made the victim of frustration, not by its own choice, but because of him who made it so; Or: because God subjected it. yet always there was hope, 8 ²¹ because Or: with the hope that ... the universe itself is to be freed from the shackles of mortality and enter upon the liberty and splendour of the children of God. 8 ²² Up to the present, we know, the whole created universe groans in all its parts as if in the pangs of childbirth. 8 ²³ Not only so, but even we, to whom the Spirit is given as firstfruits of the harvest to come, are groaning inwardly while we wait for God to make us his sons and Some witnesses omit: make us his sons and. set our whole body free. 8 ²⁴ For we have been saved, though only in hope. Now to see is no longer to hope: why should a man endure and wait Some witnesses read: why should a man hope ... for what he already sees? 8 ²⁵ But if we hope for something we do not yet see, then, in waiting for it, we show our endurance.

8 ²⁶ In the same way the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness. We do not even know how we ought to pray, Or: what it is right to pray for. but through our inarticulate groans the Spirit himself is pleading for us, 8 ²⁷ and God who searches our inmost being knows what the Spirit means, because he pleads for God's own people in God's own way; 8 ²⁸ and in everything, as we know, he co-operates for good with those who love God Or: and, as we know, all things work together for good for those who love God; Some witnesses read: and we know God himself co-operates for good with those who love God. and are called according to his purpose. 8 ²⁹ For God knew his own before ever they were, and also ordained that they should be shaped to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the eldest among a large family of brothers; 8 ³⁰ and it is these, so fore-ordained, whom he has also called. And those whom he called he has justified, and to those whom he justified he has also given his splendour.