Romans 1-3

Living Bible

1 Dear friends in Rome: This letter is from Paul, Jesus Christ’s slave, chosen to be a missionary, and sent out to preach God’s Good News. ² This Good News was promised long ago by God’s prophets in the Old Testament. ³ It is the Good News about his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who came as a human baby, born into King David’s royal family line; ⁴ and by being raised from the dead he was proved to be the mighty Son of God, with the holy nature of God himself.

⁵ And now, through Christ, all the kindness of God has been poured out upon us undeserving sinners; and now he is sending us out around the world to tell all people everywhere the great things God has done for them, so that they, too, will believe and obey him.

^6-7 And you, dear friends in Rome, are among those he dearly loves; you, too, are invited by Jesus Christ to be God’s very own—yes, his holy people. May all God’s mercies and peace be yours from God our Father and from Jesus Christ our Lord.

⁸ Let me say first of all that wherever I go I hear you being talked about! For your faith in God is becoming known around the world. How I thank God through Jesus Christ for this good report, and for each one of you. ⁹ God knows how often I pray for you. Day and night I bring you and your needs in prayer to the one I serve with all my might, telling others the Good News about his Son.

¹⁰ And one of the things I keep on praying for is the opportunity, God willing,^[a] to come at last to see you and, if possible, that I will have a safe trip. ^11-12 For I long to visit you so that I can impart to you the faith^[b] that will help your church grow strong in the Lord. Then, too, I need your help, for I want not only to share my faith with you but to be encouraged by yours: Each of us will be a blessing to the other.

¹³ I want you to know, dear brothers, that I planned to come many times before (but was prevented) so that I could work among you and see good results, just as I have among the other Gentile churches.^{[c] 14} For I owe a great debt to you and to everyone else, both to civilized people and uncivilized alike; yes, to the educated and uneducated alike. ¹⁵ So, to the fullest extent of my ability, I am ready to come also to you in Rome to preach God’s Good News.

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is God’s powerful method of bringing all who believe it to heaven. This message was preached first to the Jews alone, but now everyone is invited to come to God in this same way. ¹⁷ This Good News tells us that God makes us ready for heaven—makes us right in God’s sight—when we put our faith and trust in Christ to save us. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith.^[d] As the Scripture says it, “The man who finds life will find it through trusting God.”

¹⁸ But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, evil men who push away the truth from them. ¹⁹ For the truth about God is known to them instinctively;^[e] God has put this knowledge in their hearts. ²⁰ Since earliest times men have seen the earth and sky and all God made, and have known of his existence and great eternal power. So they will have no excuse when they stand before God at Judgment Day.^[f]

²¹ Yes, they knew about him all right, but they wouldn’t admit it or worship him or even thank him for all his daily care. And after a while they began to think up silly ideas of what God was like and what he wanted them to do. The result was that their foolish minds became dark and confused. ²² Claiming themselves to be wise without God, they became utter fools instead. ²³ And then, instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they took wood and stone and made idols for themselves, carving them to look like mere birds and animals and snakes and puny^[g] men.

²⁴ So God let them go ahead into every sort of sex sin, and do whatever they wanted to—yes, vile and sinful things with each other’s bodies. ²⁵ Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they prayed to the things God made, but wouldn’t obey the blessed God who made these things.

²⁶ That is why God let go of them and let them do all these evil things, so that even their women turned against God’s natural plan for them and indulged in sex sin with each other. ²⁷ And the men, instead of having normal sex relationships with women, burned with lust for each other, men doing shameful things with other men and, as a result, getting paid within their own souls with the penalty they so richly deserved.

²⁸ So it was that when they gave God up and would not even acknowledge him, God gave them up to doing everything their evil minds could think of. ²⁹ Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness and sin, of greed and hate, envy, murder, fighting, lying, bitterness, and gossip.

³⁰ They were backbiters, haters of God, insolent, proud, braggarts, always thinking of new ways of sinning and continually being disobedient to their parents. ³¹ They tried to misunderstand,^[h] broke their promises, and were heartless—without pity. ³² They were fully aware of God’s death penalty for these crimes, yet they went right ahead and did them anyway and encouraged others to do them, too.

2 “Well,” you may be saying, “what terrible people you have been talking about!” But wait a minute! You are just as bad. When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are talking about yourselves, for you do these very same things. ² And we know that God, in justice, will punish anyone who does such things as these. ³ Do you think that God will judge and condemn others for doing them and overlook you when you do them, too? ⁴ Don’t you realize how patient he is being with you? Or don’t you care? Can’t you see that he has been waiting all this time without punishing you, to give you time to turn from your sin? His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.

⁵ But no, you won’t listen; and so you are saving up terrible punishment for yourselves because of your stubbornness in refusing to turn from your sin; for there is going to come a day of wrath when God will be the just Judge of all the world. ⁶ He will give each one whatever his deeds deserve. ⁷ He will give eternal life to those who patiently do the will of God,^[i] seeking for the unseen glory and honor and eternal life that he offers. ⁸ But he will terribly punish those who fight against the truth of God and walk in evil ways—God’s anger will be poured out upon them. ⁹ There will be sorrow and suffering for Jews and Gentiles alike who keep on sinning. ¹⁰ But there will be glory and honor and peace from God for all who obey him,^[j] whether they are Jews or Gentiles. ¹¹ For God treats everyone the same.

^12-15 He will punish sin wherever it is found. He will punish the heathen when they sin, even though they never had God’s written laws, for down in their hearts they know right from wrong. God’s laws are written within them; their own conscience accuses them, or sometimes excuses them. And God will punish the Jews for sinning because they have his written laws but don’t obey them. They know what is right but don’t do it. After all, salvation is not given to those who know what to do, unless they do it. ¹⁶ The day will surely come when at God’s command Jesus Christ will judge the secret lives of everyone, their inmost thoughts and motives; this is all part of God’s great plan, which I proclaim.

¹⁷ You Jews think all is well between yourselves and God because he gave his laws to you;^[k] you brag that you are his special friends. ¹⁸ Yes, you know what he wants; you know right from wrong and favor the right because you have been taught his laws from earliest youth. ¹⁹ You are so sure of the way to God that you could point it out to a blind man. You think of yourselves as beacon lights, directing men who are lost in darkness to God. ²⁰ You think that you can guide the simple and teach even children the affairs of God, for you really know his laws, which are full of all knowledge and truth.

²¹ Yes, you teach others—then why don’t you teach yourselves? You tell others not to steal—do you steal? ²² You say it is wrong to commit adultery—do you do it? You say “Don’t pray to idols” and then make money your god instead.^[l]

²³ You are so proud of knowing God’s laws, but you dishonor him by breaking them. ²⁴ No wonder the Scriptures say that the world speaks evil of God because of you.

²⁵ Being a Jew is worth something if you obey God’s laws; but if you don’t, then you are no better off than the heathen. ²⁶ And if the heathen obey God’s laws, won’t God give them all the rights and honors he planned to give the Jews? ²⁷ In fact, those heathen will be much better off^[m] than you Jews who know so much about God and have his promises but don’t obey his laws.

²⁸ For you are not real Jews just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the Jewish initiation ceremony of circumcision. ²⁹ No, a real Jew is anyone whose heart is right with God. For God is not looking for those who cut their bodies in actual body circumcision, but he is looking for those with changed hearts and minds. Whoever has that kind of change in his life will get his praise from God, even if not from you.

3 Then what’s the use of being a Jew? Are there any special benefits for them from God? Is there any value in the Jewish circumcision ceremony? ² Yes, being a Jew has many advantages.

First of all, God trusted them with his laws so that they could know and do his will.^{[n] 3} True, some of them were unfaithful, but just because they broke their promises to God, does that mean God will break his promises? ⁴ Of course not! Though everyone else in the world is a liar, God is not. Do you remember what the book of Psalms says about this?^[o] That God’s words will always prove true and right, no matter who questions them.

⁵ “But,” some say, “our breaking faith with God is good, our sins serve a good purpose, for people will notice how good God is when they see how bad we are. Is it fair, then, for him to punish us when our sins are helping him?” (That is the way some people talk.) ⁶ God forbid! Then what kind of God would he be, to overlook sin? How could he ever condemn anyone? ⁷ For he could not judge and condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty brought him glory by pointing up his honesty in contrast to my lies. ⁸ If you follow through with that idea you come to this: the worse we are, the better God likes it! But the damnation of those who say such things is just. Yet some claim that this is what I preach!

⁹ Well, then, are we Jews better than others? No, not at all, for we have already shown that all men alike are sinners, whether Jews or Gentiles. ¹⁰ As the Scriptures say,

“No one is good—no one in all the world is innocent.”^[p]

¹¹ No one has ever really followed God’s paths or even truly wanted to.

¹² Every one has turned away; all have gone wrong. No one anywhere has kept on doing what is right; not one.

¹³ Their talk is foul and filthy like the stench from an open grave.^[q] Their tongues are loaded with lies. Everything they say has in it the sting and poison of deadly snakes.

¹⁴ Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.

¹⁵ They are quick to kill, hating anyone who disagrees with them.^[r]

¹⁶ Wherever they go they leave misery and trouble behind them, ¹⁷ and they have never known what it is to feel secure or enjoy God’s blessing.

¹⁸ They care nothing about God nor what he thinks of them.

¹⁹ So the judgment of God lies very heavily upon the Jews, for they are responsible to keep God’s laws instead of doing all these evil things; not one of them has any excuse; in fact, all the world stands hushed and guilty before Almighty God.

²⁰ Now do you see it? No one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what the law commands. For the more we know of God’s laws, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying them; his laws serve only to make us see that we are sinners.

^21-22 But now God has shown us a different way to heaven^[s]—not by “being good enough” and trying to keep his laws, but by a new way (though not new, really, for the Scriptures told about it long ago). Now God says he will accept and acquit us—declare us “not guilty”—if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, by coming to Christ, no matter who we are or what we have been like. ²³ Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious ideal; ²⁴ yet now God declares us “not guilty” of offending him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in his kindness freely takes away our sins.

²⁵ For God sent Christ Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to end all God’s anger against us. He used Christ’s blood and our faith as the means of saving us from his wrath.^[t] In this way he was being entirely fair, even though he did not punish those who sinned in former times. For he was looking forward to the time when Christ would come and take away those sins. ²⁶ And now in these days also he can receive sinners in this same way because Jesus took away their sins.

But isn’t this unfair for God to let criminals go free, and say that they are innocent? No, for he does it on the basis of their trust in Jesus who took away their sins.

²⁷ Then what can we boast about doing to earn our salvation? Nothing at all. Why? Because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds; it is based on what Christ has done and our faith in him. ²⁸ So it is that we are saved^[u] by faith in Christ and not by the good things we do.

²⁹ And does God save only the Jews in this way? No, the Gentiles, too, may come to him in this same manner. ³⁰ God treats us all the same; all, whether Jews or Gentiles, are acquitted if they have faith. ³¹ Well then, if we are saved by faith, does this mean that we no longer need obey God’s laws? Just the opposite! In fact, only when we trust Jesus can we truly obey him.