Romans 1-3 (Amplified Bible)

Romans 1

 ¹FROM PAUL, a bond servant of Jesus Christ (the Messiah) called to be an apostle, (a special messenger) set apart to [preach] the Gospel (good news) of and from God,

    ²Which He promised in advance [long ago] through His prophets in the sacred Scriptures--

    ³[The Gospel] regarding His Son, Who as to the flesh (His human nature) was descended from David,

    ⁴And [as to His divine nature] according to the Spirit of holiness was openly ^[a]designated the Son of God in power [in a striking, triumphant and miraculous manner] by His resurrection from the dead, even Jesus Christ our Lord (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

    ⁵It is through Him that we have received grace (God's unmerited favor) and [our] apostleship to promote obedience to the faith and make disciples for His name's sake among all the nations,

    ⁶And this includes you, called of Jesus Christ and invited [as you are] to belong to Him.

    ⁷To [you then] all God's beloved ones in Rome, called to be saints and designated for a consecrated life: Grace and spiritual blessing and peace be yours from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

    ⁸First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because [the report of] your faith is made known to all the world and is ^[b]commended everywhere.

    ⁹For God is my witness, Whom I serve with my [whole] spirit [rendering priestly and spiritual service] in [preaching] the Gospel and [telling] the good news of His Son, how incessantly I always mention you when at my prayers.

    ¹⁰I keep pleading that somehow by God's will I may now at last prosper and come to you.

    ¹¹For I am yearning to see you, that I may impart and share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen and establish you;

    ¹²That is, that we may be mutually strengthened and encouraged and comforted by each other's faith, both yours and mine.

    ¹³I want you to know, brethren, that many times I have planned and intended to come to you, though thus far I have been hindered and prevented, in order that I might have some fruit (some result of my labors) among you, as I have among the rest of the Gentiles.

    ¹⁴Both to Greeks and to barbarians (to the cultured and to the uncultured), both to the wise and the foolish, I have an obligation to discharge and a duty to perform and a debt to pay.

    ¹⁵So, for my part, I am willing and eagerly ready to preach the Gospel to you also who are in Rome.

    ¹⁶For I am not ashamed of the Gospel (good news) of Christ, for it is God's power working unto salvation [for deliverance from eternal death] to everyone who believes with a personal trust and a confident surrender and firm reliance, to the Jew first and also to the Greek,

    ¹⁷For in the Gospel a righteousness which God ascribes is revealed, both springing from faith and leading to faith [disclosed through the way of faith that arouses to more faith]. As it is written, The man who through faith is just and upright shall live and shall live by faith.^(A)

    ¹⁸For God's [holy] wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the truth and make it inoperative.

    ¹⁹For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them.

    ²⁰For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification],^(B)

    ²¹Because when they knew and recognized Him as God, they did not honor and glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. But instead they became futile and ^[c]godless in their thinking [with vain imaginings, foolish reasoning, and stupid speculations] and their senseless minds were darkened.

    ²²Claiming to be wise, they became fools [professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves].

    ²³And by them the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God were exchanged for and represented by images, resembling mortal man and birds and beasts and reptiles.

    ²⁴Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their [own] hearts to sexual impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves [abandoning them to the degrading power of sin],

    ²⁵Because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever! Amen (so be it).^(C)

    ²⁶For this reason God gave them over and abandoned them to vile affections and degrading passions. For their women exchanged their natural function for an unnatural and abnormal one,

    ²⁷And the men also turned from natural relations with women and were set ablaze (burning out, consumed) with lust for one another--men committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own ^[d]bodies and personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong-doing and going astray, which was [their] fitting retribution.

    ²⁸And so, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth the knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind to do things not proper or decent but loathsome,

    ²⁹Until they were filled (permeated and saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, iniquity, grasping and covetous greed, and malice. [They were] full of envy and jealousy, murder, strife, deceit and treachery, ill will and cruel ways. [They were] secret backbiters and gossipers,

    ³⁰Slanderers, hateful to and hating God, full of insolence, arrogance, [and] boasting; inventors of new forms of evil, disobedient and undutiful to parents.

    ³¹[They were] without understanding, conscienceless and faithless, heartless and loveless [and] merciless.

    ³²Though they are fully aware of God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them themselves but approve and applaud others who practice them.

   

Romans 2

 ¹THEREFORE YOU have no excuse or defense or justification, O man, whoever you are who judges and condemns another. For in posing as judge and passing sentence on another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge are habitually practicing the very same things [that you censure and denounce].

    ²[But] we know that the judgment (adverse verdict, sentence) of God falls justly and in accordance with truth upon those who practice such things.

    ³And do you think or imagine, O man, when you judge and condemn those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape God's judgment and elude His sentence and adverse verdict?

    ⁴Or are you [so blind as to] trifle with and presume upon and despise and underestimate the wealth of His kindness and forbearance and long-suffering patience? Are you unmindful or actually ignorant [of the fact] that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repent (^[e]to change your mind and inner man to accept God's will)?

    ⁵But by your callous stubbornness and impenitence of heart you are storing up wrath and indignation for yourself on the day of wrath and indignation, when God's righteous judgment (just doom) will be revealed.

    ⁶For He will render to every man according to his works [justly, as his deeds deserve]:^(D)

    ⁷To those who by patient persistence in well-doing [^[f]springing from piety] seek [unseen but sure] glory and honor and [^[g]the eternal blessedness of] immortality, He will give eternal life.

    ⁸But for those who are self-seeking and self-willed and disobedient to the Truth but responsive to wickedness, there will be indignation and wrath.

    ⁹[And] there will be tribulation and anguish and calamity and constraint for every soul of man who [habitually] does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek (Gentile).

    ¹⁰But glory and honor and [heart] peace shall be awarded to everyone who [habitually] does good, the Jew first and also the Greek (Gentile).

    ¹¹For God shows no partiality [^[h]undue favor or unfairness; with Him one man is not different from another].^(E)

    ¹²All who have sinned without the Law will also perish without [regard to] the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged and condemned by the Law.

    ¹³For it is not merely hearing the Law [read] that makes one righteous before God, but it is the doers of the Law who will be held guiltless and acquitted and justified.

    ¹⁴When Gentiles who have not the [divine] Law do instinctively what the Law requires, they are a law to themselves, since they do not have the Law.

    ¹⁵They show that the essential requirements of the Law are written in their hearts and are operating there, with which their consciences (sense of right and wrong) also bear witness; and their [moral] ^[i]decisions (their arguments of reason, their condemning or approving ^[j]thoughts) will accuse or perhaps defend and excuse [them]

    ¹⁶On that day when, as my Gospel proclaims, God by Jesus Christ will judge men in regard to ^[k]the things which they conceal (their hidden thoughts).^(F)

    ¹⁷But if you bear the name of Jew and rely upon the Law and pride yourselves in God and your relationship to Him,

    ¹⁸And know and understand His will and discerningly approve the better things and have a sense of what is vital, because you are instructed by the Law;

    ¹⁹And if you are confident that you [yourself] are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, and [that

    ²⁰You are] a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the childish, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and truth--

    ²¹Well then, you who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you teach against stealing, do you steal (take what does not really belong to you)?

    ²²You who say not to commit adultery, do you commit adultery [are you unchaste in action or in thought]? You who abhor and loathe idols, do you rob temples [do you appropriate to your own use what is consecrated to God, thus robbing the sanctuary and ^[l]doing sacrilege]?

    ²³You who boast in the Law, do you dishonor God by breaking the Law [by stealthily infringing upon or carelessly neglecting or openly breaking it]?

    ²⁴For, as it is written, The name of God is maligned and blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you! [The words to this effect are from your own Scriptures.]^(G)

    ²⁵Circumcision does indeed profit if you keep the Law; but if you habitually transgress the Law, your circumcision is made uncircumcision.

    ²⁶So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be credited to him as [equivalent to] circumcision?

    ²⁷Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the Law will condemn you who, although you have the code in writing and have circumcision, break the Law.

    ²⁸For he is not a [real] Jew who is only one outwardly and publicly, nor is [true] circumcision something external and physical.

    ²⁹But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and [true] circumcision is of the heart, a spiritual and not a literal [matter]. His praise is not from men but from God.

   

Romans 3

 ¹THEN WHAT advantage remains to the Jew? [How is he favored?] Or what is the value or benefit of circumcision?

    ²Much in every way. To begin with, to the Jews were entrusted the oracles (the brief communications, the intentions, the utterances) of God.^(H)

    ³What if some did not believe and were without faith? Does their lack of faith and their faithlessness nullify and make ineffective and void the faithfulness of God and His fidelity [to His Word]?

    ⁴By no means! Let God be found true though every human being is false and a liar, as it is written, That You may be justified and shown to be upright in what You say, and prevail when You are judged [by sinful men].^(I)

    ⁵But if our unrighteousness thus establishes and exhibits the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust and wrong to inflict His wrath upon us [Jews]? I speak in a [purely] human way.

    ⁶By no means! Otherwise, how could God judge the world?

    ⁷But [you say] if through my falsehood God's integrity is magnified and advertised and abounds to His glory, why am I still being judged as a sinner?

    ⁸And why should we not do evil that good may come?--as some slanderously charge us with teaching. Such [false teaching] is justly condemned by them.

    ⁹Well then, are we [Jews] superior and better off than they? No, not at all. We have already charged that all men, both Jews and Greeks (Gentiles), are under sin [held down by and subject to its power and control].

    ¹⁰As it is written, None is righteous, just and truthful and upright and conscientious, no, not one.^(J)

    ¹¹No one understands [no one intelligently discerns or comprehends]; no one seeks out God.^(K)

    ¹²All have turned aside; together they have gone wrong and have become unprofitable and worthless; no one does right, not even one!

    ¹³Their throat is a yawning grave; they use their tongues to deceive (to mislead and to deal treacherously). The venom of asps is beneath their lips.^(L)

    ¹⁴Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.^(M)

    ¹⁵Their feet are swift to shed blood.

    ¹⁶Destruction [as it dashes them to pieces] and misery mark their ways.

    ¹⁷And they have no experience of the way of peace [they know nothing about peace, for a peaceful way they do not even recognize].^(N)

    ¹⁸There is no [reverential] fear of God before their eyes.^(O)

    ¹⁹Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that [the murmurs and excuses of] every mouth may be hushed and all the world may be held accountable to God.

    ²⁰For no person will be justified (made righteous, acquitted, and judged acceptable) in His sight by observing the works prescribed by the Law. For [the real function of] the Law is to make men recognize and be conscious of sin [^[m]not mere perception, but an acquaintance with sin which works toward repentance, faith, and holy character].

    ²¹But now the righteousness of God has been revealed independently and altogether apart from the Law, although actually it is attested by the Law and the Prophets,

    ²²Namely, the righteousness of God which comes by believing with personal trust and confident reliance on Jesus Christ (the Messiah). [And it is meant] for all who believe. For there is no distinction,

    ²³Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory ^[n]which God bestows and receives.

    ²⁴[All] are justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His grace (His unmerited favor and mercy), through the redemption which is [provided] in Christ Jesus,

    ²⁵Whom God put forward [^[o]before the eyes of all] as a mercy seat and propitiation by His blood [the cleansing and life-giving sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation, to be received] through faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over and ignored former sins without punishment.

    ²⁶It was to demonstrate and prove at the present time (^[p]in the now season) that He Himself is righteous and that He justifies and accepts as righteous him who has [true] faith in Jesus.

    ²⁷Then what becomes of [our] pride and [our] boasting? It is excluded (banished, ruled out entirely). On what principle? [On the principle] of doing good deeds? No, but on the principle of faith.

    ²⁸For we hold that a man is justified and made upright by faith independent of and distinctly apart from good deeds (works of the Law). [The observance of the Law has nothing to do with justification.]

    ²⁹Or is God merely [the God] of Jews? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,

    ³⁰Since it is one and the same God Who will justify the circumcised by faith [^[q]which germinated from Abraham] and the uncircumcised through their [newly acquired] faith. [For it is the same trusting faith in both cases, a firmly relying faith in Jesus Christ].

    ³¹Do we then by [this] faith make the Law of no effect, overthrow it or make it a dead letter? Certainly not! On the contrary, we confirm and establish and uphold the Law.