Yet it is this verse that Paul quotes in the climactic final verses of Romans 8, in the midst of his rhapsodic assurance to his readers that nothing in all creation can separate them from the love of God in Christ.

To begin with, there is the fact that the immediately preceding verse, Romans 8:35, is a question, not an assertion: its function is not to assert that the people of Christ suffer, but rather (presupposing that this is the case) to ask whether those sufferings can have the effect of separating Christ’s people from his love. The Missus proudly describes her new creation as "a gigantic five-ounce cookie packed with enough chunks of chocolate, pecans, almonds, and sunflower seeds to keep you going all day long. Paul reads the Psalm as a prophetic prefiguration of the experience of the Christian church, so that the text finds its true primary meaning in Paul’s own present time. Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the LORD. Starling, Not My People: Gentiles as Exiles in Pauline Hermeneutics, BZNW (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 147.The soul-life which once rebelled against God's will is now brought into full submission to His will through the work of the cross and is willing to do His will wholeheartedly. The chorus of the well-known hymn 'Blessed Assurance' says:This is my story, this is my song,Praising my Savior all the day long.

Ben Witherington, similarly, sees the point of the quotation as being to prove that “no danger that overcomes Christians is anything new or unexpected for the people of God. But for a whole book the central character's passivity in seeing people come into and out of her life is just frustrating. My supercharged trilogy of skincare is designed to simplify your routine, providing you with the very latest in skincare technology, for protected and healthy skin in just 3 simple steps.

The exact origin of the phrase cannot be found however most likely this phrase is a literal representation of its constituent words. O Lord, support us all the day long of this troublous life, until the shades lengthen and the evening comes, the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over and our work is done; then Lord, in thy mercy, grant us safe lodging, a holy rest, and peace at the last, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 534. The description of the people of God as “sheep to be slaughtered,” similarly, can readily be converted into an image of cruciform participation in the saving mission of God, if it is heard in concert with the similar image in Isaiah 53:7.

But Paul’s purpose, it seems, is not for verse 35 to be heard as an easily and obviously self-answering question.

Lament, for Paul—even protesting lament—retains its validity as an authentic expression of Christian faith. Of how many churches at Rome and elsewhere might it not be said, "Thou art the man," "The beam is in thine own eye"? But he had not been convinced by the oracles of the great prophets, from Amos and Hosea, Isaiah and Micah, or Jeremiah, his contemporary (Jer 7:1–11).