Romans 13:1

¹Remind them to be in subjection to rulers and to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work,

¹³Therefore subject yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether to the king, as supreme, ¹⁴or to governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evildoers and for praise to those who do well. ¹⁵For this is the will of God, that by well-doing you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. ¹⁶Live as free people, yet not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God.

¹⁷Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.

²¹He changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who have understanding.

¹¹Jesus answered, “You would have no power at all against me, unless it were given to you from above. Therefore he who delivered me to you has greater sin.”

¹⁵By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. ¹⁶By me princes rule, nobles, and all the righteous rulers of the earth.

⁵‘I have made the earth, the men, and the animals that are on the surface of the earth by my great power and by my outstretched arm. I give it to whom it seems right to me. ⁶Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant. I have also given the animals of the field to him to serve him. ⁷All the nations will serve him, his son, and his son’s son, until the time of his own land comes. Then many nations and great kings will make him their bondservant.

⁸“‘“‘It will happen that I will punish the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon,’ says the LORD, ‘with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.

⁸Yet in the same way, these also in their dreaming defile the flesh, despise authority, and slander celestial beings.

¹⁸“To you, king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father the kingdom, and greatness, and glory, and majesty. ¹⁹Because of the greatness that he gave him, all the peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. He killed whom he wanted to, and he kept alive whom he wanted to. He raised up whom he wanted to, and he put down whom he wanted to. ²⁰But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him. ²¹He was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the animals’, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the sky, until he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and that he sets up over it whomever he will.

²²“You, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, ²³but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which don’t see, or hear, or know; and you have not glorified the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways.

¹¹God has spoken once; twice I have heard this, that power belongs to God.

²¹subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.