17 The fact is that God makes every one of us who trusts in Christ to be completely different than we were before. Our old way of conducting our lives is gone. We now have a completely new way of conducting our lives.

15 I will boast about Christ dying on the cross because God is concerned neither that people are circumcised nor that people are not circumcised. Instead, he is concerned only that people conduct their lives in a completely new way.

10 It is God who has made us what we are now. Because of our relationship with Christ Jesus, he has enabled us to receive spiritual/eternal life in order that we should conduct our lives habitually doing the good deeds that God previously planned for us to do.

5 Then God, who sits on the throne, said, "Listen to this! I am now making everything new!" He said to me: "Write these things that I have told you, because you can trust that I will certainly cause them to happen."

22 You were taught {They taught you} that you must put aside [MET] your evil nature; that is, that you must not behave like you formerly did. Your evil desires deceived you, making you want to do evil things and causing you to think that doing that was good for you; and your thinking like that was destroying you spiritually. 23 Others taught you that instead, you must let God’s Spirit change the way you think, 24 and that you must start being [MET] the new persons that God made you to become. That is, your behavior must be righteous and truly/genuinely devout.

9 Do not lie to one another. Do not do those things, because you have ◄disposed of/stopped obeying► your former evil nature and stopped doing what you did when you had that former evil nature, 10 and because you have received a new nature. God is causing your new nature to become more and more like his own nature. He created your new nature in order that you might get to know God truly.

4 So, when we were baptized {someone baptized us}, it was as though we were buried with Christ. We were baptized in order to indicate that we would not let our sinful desires make us do what they want us to do, just like people cannot make a corpse do what they want it to do [MET]. We were baptized to signify that we would continually conduct our lives in a new way, just like Christ was caused to live again in a new way by the great power of God his Father. 5 Because of our close relationship with Christ, we have separated ourselves from the former way in which we conducted our lives, just like he was separated from his physical life when he died [MET]. But God will also certainly enable us to live in a new way, just like he enabled Christ to live again. 6 We must keep remembering that when Christ died on the cross [MET], it was as though our sinful nature died with him. It has lost its power to make us do what it wants us to do [MET]. That happened in order that we would not do the sinful things that our bodies [MET], which desire to sin, want us to do, and in order that we would no longer have to sin [MET], as slaves have to do what their masters want. 7 We are, as it were, freed {free} from sinful desires [MET] controlling us, just like those who have died are free from anything controlling them.

20 It is as though I was with Christ when he was crucified {died on the cross} [MET] (OR, It is as though my old way of life ended when Christ died on the cross.) No longer am I directing the way I behave as I did before I believed in Christ. Now Christ is directing how I behave. And whatever I do now while I live, I do it trusting in God’s Son. He is the one who loved me and offered himself as a sacrifice for me.

19 I will put a new way of thinking [IDM] within you. I will cause you to no longer be stubborn [IDM], and I will enable you to obey me completely [IDM]. 20 When I do that, you will carefully obey all my laws [DOU]. You will be my people, and I will be your God.

3 Jesus replied to him, "Listen to this carefully: Unless people are born again and have a new life from God, they cannot even see the place where God rules [MET]!"

4 Being glorious and perfect, he has promised us that he will do very great and ◄priceless/very precious► things for us. He has also promised you that by believing what he has promised you will be able to act righteously, just like God acts righteously, and that you will be free from being morally depraved/corrupted, and that you will not be like those who do not believe in Christ and are morally depraved because of their desire to do things that are evil.

18 But do not think only about what happened in the past, long ago [DOU].

19 Instead, consider the new thing that I am going to do.

I have already started to do it;

can you see it?

I am going to make a road through the desert.

And I will cause there to be streams in the wasteland/desert.