Romans 1:18-2:16

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

The Guilt of Humankind

¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those who by their injustice suppress the truth.^{(A) 19} For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood through the things God has made. So they are without excuse,^{(B) 21} for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless hearts were darkened.^{(C) 22} Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.^(D)

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.^{(E) 25} They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.^(F)

²⁶ For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Their females exchanged natural intercourse^[a] for unnatural,^{(G) 27} and in the same way also the males, giving up natural intercourse^[b] with females, were consumed with their passionate desires for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.^(H)

²⁸ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to an unfit mind and to do things that should not be done.^{(I) 29} They were filled with every kind of injustice, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters,^[c] insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents,^{(J) 31} foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.^{(K) 32} They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.^(L)

The Righteous Judgment of God

2 Therefore you are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.^{(M) 2} We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth. ³ Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? ⁴ Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?^{(N) 5} But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.^{(O) 6} He will repay according to each one’s deeds:^{(P) 7} to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life, ⁸ while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but injustice, there will be wrath and fury.^{(Q) 9} There will be affliction and distress for everyone who does evil, both the Jew first and the Greek,^{(R) 10} but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, both the Jew first and the Greek. ¹¹ For God shows no partiality.^(S)

¹² All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged in accordance with the law. ¹³ For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight but the doers of the law who will be justified.^{(T) 14} When gentiles, who do not possess the law, by nature do^[d] what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. ¹⁵ They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, as their own conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them ¹⁶ on the day when, according to my gospel, God through Christ Jesus judges the secret thoughts of all.^(U)