Romans 1
New Testament for Everyone
Good news about the new king
1 Paul, a slave of the Messiah, King Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for God’s good news, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the sacred writings— 3 the good news about his son, who was descended from David’s seed in terms of flesh, 4 and who was marked out powerfully as God’s son in terms of the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead: Jesus, the royal Messiah, our Lord!
5 Through him we have received grace and apostleship to bring about believing obedience among all the nations for the sake of his name. 6 That includes you, too, who are called by Jesus the Messiah.
7 This letter comes to all in Rome who love God, all who are called to be his holy people. Grace and peace to you from God our father, and Messiah Jesus, the Lord.
Paul longs to see the Roman Christians
8 Let me say first that I thank my God for all of you, through Jesus the king, because all the world has heard the news of your faith. 9 God is my witness—the God I worship in my spirit in the good news of his son—that I never stop remembering you 10 in my prayers. I ask God again and again that somehow at last I may now be able, in his good purposes, to come to you. 11 I’m longing to see you! I want to share with you some spiritual blessing to give you strength; 12 that is, I want to encourage you, and be encouraged by you, in the faith you and I share. 13 I don’t want you to be unaware, my dear family, that I’ve often made plans to come to you; it’s just that up to now something has always got in the way. I want to bear some fruit among you, as I have been doing among the other nations.
Good news, salvation and the justice of God
14 I am under obligation to Greeks and barbarians alike, you see; both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 That’s why I’m eager to announce the good news to you, too, in Rome. 16 I’m not ashamed of the good news; it’s God’s power, bringing salvation to everyone who believes—to the Jew first, and also, equally, to the Greek. 17 This is because God’s covenant justice is unveiled in it, from faithfulness to faithfulness. As it says in the Bible, “the just shall live by faith.”
Humans reject God and embrace corruption
18 For the anger of God is unveiled from heaven against all the ungodliness and injustice performed by people who use injustice to suppress the truth. 19 What can be known of God, you see, is plain to them, since God has made it plain to them. 20 There are, of course, things about God which you can’t see, namely, his eternal power and deity. But, ever since the world was created, they have been known and seen in the things he has made. As a result, they have no excuse: 21 they knew God, but didn’t honor him as God or thank him. Instead, they learned to think in useless ways, and their unwise heart grew dark. 22 They declared themselves to be wise, but in fact they became foolish. 23 They swapped the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of the image of mortal humans—and of birds, animals and reptiles.
Unclean desires, dishonored bodies
24 So God gave them up to uncleanness in the desires of their hearts, with the result that they dishonored their bodies among themselves. 25 They swapped God’s truth for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever, Amen.
26 So God gave them up to shameful desires. Even the women, you see, swapped natural sexual practice for unnatural; 27 and the men, too, abandoned natural sexual relations with women, and were inflamed with their lust for one another. Men performed shameless acts with men, and received in themselves the appropriate repayment for their mistaken ways.
Darkened mind, darkened behavior
28 Moreover, just as they did not see fit to hold on to knowledge of God, God gave them up to an unfit mind, so that they would behave inappropriately. 29 They were filled with all kinds of injustice, wickedness, greed and evil; they were full of envy, murder, enmity, deceit and cunning. They became gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, self-important, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 unwise, unfaithful, unfeeling, uncaring. 32 They know that God has rightly decreed that people who do things like that deserve death. But not only do they do them; they give their approval to people who practice them.
Romans 1
Complete Jewish Bible
1 From: Sha’ul, a slave of the Messiah Yeshua, an emissary because I was called and set apart for the Good News of God.
2 God promised this Good News in advance through his prophets in the Tanakh. 3 It concerns his Son — he is descended from David physically; 4 he was powerfully demonstrated to be Son of God spiritually, set apart by his having been resurrected from the dead; he is Yeshua the Messiah, our Lord. 5 Through him we received grace and were given the work of being an emissary on his behalf promoting trust-grounded obedience among all the Gentiles, 6 including you, who have been called by Yeshua the Messiah.
7 To: All those in Rome whom God loves, who have been called, who have been set apart for him:
Grace to you and shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.
8 First, I thank my God through Yeshua the Messiah for all of you, because the report of your trust is spreading throughout the whole world. 9 For God, whom I serve in my spirit by spreading the Good News about his Son, is my witness that I regularly remember you 10 in my prayers; and I always pray that somehow, now or in the future, I might, by God’s will, succeed in coming to visit you. 11 For I long to see you, so that I might share with you some spiritual gift that can make you stronger — 12 or, to put it another way, so that by my being with you, we might, through the faith we share, encourage one another. 13 Brothers, I want you to know that although I have been prevented from visiting you until now, I have often planned to do so, in order that I might have some fruit among you, just as I have among the other Gentiles. 14 I owe a debt to both civilized Greeks and uncivilized people, to both the educated and the ignorant; 15 therefore I am eager to proclaim the Good News also to you who live in Rome.
16 For I am not ashamed of the Good News, since it is God’s powerful means of bringing salvation to everyone who keeps on trusting, to the Jew especially, but equally to the Gentile. 17 For in it is revealed how God makes people righteous in his sight; and from beginning to end it is through trust — as the Tanakh puts it, “But the person who is righteous will live his life by trust.”[a]
18 What is revealed is God’s anger from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who in their wickedness keep suppressing the truth; 19 because what is known about God is plain to them, since God has made it plain to them. 20 For ever since the creation of the universe his invisible qualities — both his eternal power and his divine nature — have been clearly seen, because they can be understood from what he has made. Therefore, they have no excuse; 21 because, although they know who God is, they do not glorify him as God or thank him. On the contrary, they have become futile in their thinking; and their undiscerning hearts have become darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they have become fools! 23 In fact, they have exchanged the glory of the immortal God for mere images, like a mortal human being, or like birds, animals or reptiles!
24 This is why God has given them up to the vileness of their hearts’ lusts, to the shameful misuse of each other’s bodies. 25 They have exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, by worshipping and serving created things, rather than the Creator — praised be he for ever. Amen. 26 This is why God has given them up to degrading passions; so that their women exchange natural sexual relations for unnatural; 27 and likewise the men, giving up natural relations with the opposite sex, burn with passion for one another, men committing shameful acts with other men and receiving in their own persons the penalty appropriate to their perversion. 28 In other words, since they have not considered God worth knowing, God has given them up to worthless ways of thinking; so that they do improper things. 29 They are filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and vice; stuffed with jealousy, murder, quarrelling, dishonesty and ill-will; they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God; they are insolent, arrogant and boastful; they plan evil schemes; they disobey their parents; 31 they are brainless, faithless, heartless and ruthless. 32 They know well enough God’s righteous decree that people who do such things deserve to die; yet not only do they keep doing them, but they applaud others who do the same.
Footnotes
- Romans 1:17 Habakkuk 2:4
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.