Romans 1:18-32

International Children’s Bible

All People Have Done Wrong

¹⁸ God’s anger is shown from heaven against all the evil and wrong things that people do. By their own evil lives they hide the truth. ¹⁹ God shows his anger because everything that may be known about God has been made clear. Yes, God has clearly shown them everything that may be known about him. ²⁰ There are things about God that people cannot see—his eternal power and all the things that make him God. But since the beginning of the world those things have been easy to understand. They are made clear by what God has made. So people have no excuse for the bad things they do. ²¹ They knew God. But they did not give glory to God, and they did not thank him. Their thinking became useless. Their foolish minds were filled with darkness. ²² They said they were wise, but they became fools. ²³ They gave up the glory of God who lives forever. They traded that glory for the worship of idols made to look like earthly people. They traded God’s glory for things that look like birds, animals, and snakes.

²⁴ People were full of sin, wanting only to do evil. So God left them to follow their evil desires, and they made one another’s bodies impure by what they did. ²⁵ They traded the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served things that were made by man. But they did not worship and serve the God who made those things. God should be praised forever. Amen.

²⁶ Because people did those things, God left them and let them do the shameful things they wanted to do. Women stopped having natural physical relations with men for what is unnatural. ²⁷ In the same way, men stopped having natural physical relations with women and began wanting each other. Men did shameful things with other men. And in their bodies they received the punishment for those wrongs.

²⁸ People did not think it was important to have a true knowledge of God. So God left them and allowed them to have their own worthless thinking. And so those people do the things that they should not do. ²⁹ They are filled with every kind of sin, evil, selfishness, and hatred. They are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, lying, and thinking the worst about each other. They gossip ³⁰ and say evil things about each other. They hate God. They are rude and conceited and brag about themselves. They invent ways of doing evil. They do not obey their parents. ³¹ They are foolish, they do not keep their promises, and they show no kindness or mercy to other people. ³² They know God’s law says that those who live like this should die. But they continue to do these evil things. And they also feel that those who do these things are doing right.