Romans 1

Tree of Life Version

Introducing Paul and His Message

1 Paul, a slave of Messiah Yeshua, called to be an emissary and set apart for the Good News of God, ² which He announced beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures.

⁵ Through Him we have received grace and the office of emissary, to bring about obedience of faith among all the nations on behalf of His name. ⁶ And you also are called to Yeshua the Messiah.

⁷ To all those in Rome, loved by God, called to be kedoshim:

Grace to you and shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah!

Eager to Visit

⁸ First, I thank my God through Messiah Yeshua for all of you, because your faithfulness is made known throughout the whole world. ⁹ For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Good News of His Son. How unceasingly I make mention of you, ¹⁰ always pleading in my prayers, if somehow by God’s will now at last I will be granted a good journey to come to you. ¹¹ For I long to see you, so I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. ¹² That is to say, we would be encouraged together by one another’s faithfulness—both yours and mine.

¹³ I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,^[a] that many times I planned to come to you (though I was prevented until now)—so I might have some fruit among you also, just as I have among the rest of the nations. ¹⁴ I have an obligation to both Greeks and barbarians, to both the wise and the foolish. ¹⁵ So I am eager to proclaim the Good News also to you who are in Rome.

The Righteous Shall Live by Faith

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the Good News, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who trusts—to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ In it the righteousness of God is revealed, from trust to trust.^[b] As it is written, “But the righteous shall live by emunah.”^[c]

Yet All Are Guilty

¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. In unrighteousness they suppress the truth, ¹⁹ because what can be known about God is plain to them—for God has shown it to them. ²⁰ His invisible attributes—His eternal power and His divine nature—have been clearly seen ever since the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made.^[d] So people are without excuse— ²¹ for even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. Instead, their thinking became futile, and their senseless hearts were made dark. ^{[e] 22} Claiming to be wise, they became fools. ²³ They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image in the form of mortal man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.^[f]

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the evil desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They traded the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. ²⁶ For this reason God gave them up to shameful passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for what is against nature. ²⁷ Likewise the men abandoned natural relations with women and were burning with passion toward one another—men committing shameful acts with other men^[g] and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ And just as they did not see fit to recognize God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what is not fitting. ²⁹ They became filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents. ³¹ They are foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³² Though they know God’s righteous decree—that those who practice such things deserve death—they not only do them but also approve of others who practice the same.