²⁰ He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. ²¹ For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, greed,^(A) malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. ²³ All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

⁵ “It was because your hearts were hard^(A) that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. ⁶ “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’^{[a](B) 7} ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,^{[b] 8} and the two will become one flesh.’^[c](C) So they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹ Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.^{(A) 22} Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools^{(B) 23} and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images^(C) made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over^(D) in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.^{(E) 25} They exchanged the truth about God for a lie,^(F) and worshiped and served created things^(G) rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.^(H) Amen.^(I)

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over^(J) to shameful lusts.^(K) Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.^{(L) 27} In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.^(M)

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over^(N) to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,^{(O) 30} slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;^{(P) 31} they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love,^(Q) no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death,^(R) they not only continue to do these very things but also approve^(S) of those who practice them.

⁶ You see, at just the right time,^(A) when we were still powerless,^(B) Christ died for the ungodly.^{(C) 7} Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.^(D)

¹⁵ But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man,^(A) how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ,^(B) overflow to the many!