Romans 7-9

Easy-to-Read Version

An Example From Marriage

7 Brothers and sisters, you all understand the Law of Moses. So surely you know that the law rules over people only while they are alive. ² It’s like what the law says about marriage: A woman must stay married to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is made free from the law of marriage. ³ But if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, the law says she is guilty of adultery. But if her husband dies, she is made free from the law of marriage. So if she marries another man after her husband dies, she is not guilty of adultery.

⁴ In the same way, my brothers and sisters, your old selves died and you became free from the law through the body of Christ. Now you belong to someone else. You belong to the one who was raised from death. We belong to Christ so that we can be used in service to God. ⁵ In the past we were ruled by our sinful selves. The law made us want to do sinful things. And those sinful desires controlled our bodies, so that what we did only brought us spiritual death. ⁶ In the past the law held us as prisoners, but our old selves died, and we were made free from the law. So now we serve God in a new way, not in the old way, with the written rules. Now we serve God in the new way, with the Spirit.

Our Fight Against Sin

⁷ You might think I am saying that sin and the law are the same. That is not true. But the law was the only way I could learn what sin means. I would never have known it is wrong to want something that is not mine. But the law said, “You must not want what belongs to someone else.”^{[a] 8} And sin found a way to use that command and make me want all kinds of things that weren’t mine. So sin came to me because of the command. But without the law, sin has no power. ⁹ Before I knew the law, I was alive. But when I heard the law’s command, sin began to live, ¹⁰ and I died spiritually. The command was meant to bring life, but for me it brought death. ¹¹ Sin found a way to fool me by using the command to make me die.

¹² Now the law is holy, and the command is holy and right and good. ¹³ Does this mean that something that is good brought death to me? No, it was sin that used the good command to bring me death. This shows how terrible sin really is. It can use a good command to produce a result that shows sin at its very worst.

The War Inside Us

¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not. I am so human. Sin rules me as if I were its slave. ¹⁵ I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate. ¹⁶ And if I don’t want to do what I do, that means I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ But I am not really the one doing the evil. It is sin living in me that does it. ¹⁸ Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is not spiritual. I want to do what is good, but I don’t do it. ¹⁹ I don’t do the good that I want to do. I do the evil that I don’t want to do. ²⁰ So if I do what I don’t want to do, then I am not really the one doing it. It is the sin living in me that does it.

²¹ So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me. ²² In my mind I am happy with God’s law. ²³ But I see another law working in my body. That law makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and that law makes me its prisoner. ²⁴ What a miserable person I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? ²⁵ I thank God for his salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.

Life in the Spirit

8 So now anyone who is in Christ Jesus is not judged guilty. ² That is because in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made you^[b] free. It made you free from the law that brings sin and death. ³ The law was without power because it was made weak by our sinful selves. But God did what the law could not do: He sent his own Son to earth with the same human life that everyone else uses for sin. God sent him to be an offering to pay for sin. So God used a human life to destroy sin. ⁴ He did this so that we could be right just as the law said we must be. Now we don’t live following our sinful selves. We live following the Spirit.

⁵ People who live following their sinful selves think only about what they want. But those who live following the Spirit are thinking about what the Spirit wants them to do. ⁶ If your thinking is controlled by your sinful self, there is spiritual death. But if your thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace. ⁷ Why is this true? Because anyone whose thinking is controlled by their sinful self is against God. They refuse to obey God’s law. And really they are not able to obey it. ⁸ Those who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot please God.

⁹ But you are not ruled by your sinful selves. You are ruled by the Spirit, if that Spirit of God really lives in you. But whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ. ¹⁰ Your body will always be dead because of sin. But if Christ is in you, then the Spirit gives you life, because Christ made you right with God. ¹¹ God raised Jesus from death. And if God’s Spirit lives in you, he will also give life to your bodies that die. Yes, God is the one who raised Christ from death, and he will raise you to life through his Spirit living in you.

¹² So, my brothers and sisters, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves. We must not live the way our sinful selves want. ¹³ If you use your lives to do what your sinful selves want, you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit’s help to stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, you will have true life.

¹⁴ The true children of God are those who let God’s Spirit lead them. ¹⁵ The Spirit that we received is not a spirit that makes us slaves again and causes us to fear. The Spirit that we have makes us God’s chosen children. And with that Spirit we cry out, “ Abba,^[c] Father.” ¹⁶ And the Spirit himself speaks to our spirits and makes us sure that we are God’s children. ¹⁷ If we are God’s children, we will get the blessings God has for his people. He will give us all that he has given Christ. But we must suffer like Christ suffered. Then we will be able to share his glory.

We Will Have Glory in the Future

¹⁸ We have sufferings now, but these are nothing compared to the great glory that will be given to us. ¹⁹ Everything that God made is waiting with excitement for the time when he will show the world who his children are. The whole world wants very much for that to happen. ²⁰ Everything God made was allowed to become like something that cannot fulfill its purpose. That was not its choice, but God made it happen with this hope in view: ²¹ That the creation would be made free from ruin—that everything God made would have the same freedom and glory that belong to God’s children.

²² We know that everything God made has been waiting until now in pain like a woman ready to give birth to a child. ²³ Not only the world, but we also have been waiting with pain inside us. We have the Spirit as the first part of God’s promise. So we are waiting for God to finish making us his own children. I mean we are waiting for our bodies to be made free. ²⁴ We were saved to have this hope. If we can see what we are waiting for, that is not really hope. People don’t hope for something they already have. ²⁵ But we are hoping for something we don’t have yet, and we are waiting for it patiently.

²⁶ Also, the Spirit helps us. We are very weak, but the Spirit helps us with our weakness. We don’t know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself speaks to God for us. He begs God for us, speaking to him with feelings too deep for words. ²⁷ God already knows our deepest thoughts. And he understands what the Spirit is saying, because the Spirit speaks for his people in the way that agrees with what God wants.

²⁸ We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him. These are the people God chose, because that was his plan. ²⁹ God knew them before he made the world. And he decided that they would be like his Son. Then Jesus would be the firstborn of many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ God planned for them to be like his Son. He chose them and made them right with him. And after he made them right, he gave them his glory.

God’s Love in Christ Jesus

³¹ So what should we say about this? If God is for us, no one can stand against us. And God is with us. ³² He even let his own Son suffer for us. God gave his Son for all of us. So now with Jesus, God will surely give us all things. ³³ Who can accuse the people God has chosen? No one! God is the one who makes them right. ³⁴ Who can say that God’s people are guilty? No one! Christ Jesus died for us, but that is not all. He was also raised from death. And now he is at God’s right side, speaking to him for us. ³⁵ Can anything separate us from Christ’s love? Can trouble or problems or persecution separate us from his love? If we have no food or clothes or face danger or even death, will that separate us from his love? ³⁶ As the Scriptures say,

³⁷ But in all these troubles we have complete victory through God, who has shown his love for us. ^38-39 Yes, I am sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love—not death, life, angels, or ruling spirits. I am sure that nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us or nothing below us—nothing in the whole created world—will ever be able to separate us from the love God has shown us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God and the Jewish People

9 I am in Christ and I am telling you the truth. I am not lying. And my conscience, ruled by the Holy Spirit, agrees that what I say now is true. ² I have great sorrow and always feel much sadness ³ for my own people. They are my brothers and sisters, my earthly family. I wish I could help them. I would even have a curse on me and cut myself off from Christ if that would help them. ⁴ They are the people of Israel, God’s chosen children. They have the glory of God and the agreements he made between himself and his people. God gave them the Law of Moses, the Temple worship, and his promises. ⁵ They are the descendants of our great fathers, and they are the earthly family of the Messiah, who is God over all things. Praise him forever!^[d] Amen.

⁶ I don’t mean that God failed to keep his promise to the Jewish people. But only some of the people of Israel are really God’s people.^{[e] 7} And only some of Abraham’s descendants are true children of Abraham. This is what God said to Abraham: “Your true descendants will be those who come through Isaac.”^{[f] 8} This means that not all of Abraham’s descendants are God’s true children. Abraham’s true children are those who become God’s children because of the promise he made to Abraham. ⁹ Here is what God said in that promise: “About this time next year I will come back, and Sarah will have a son.”^[g]

¹⁰ And that is not all. Rebecca also had sons, and they had the same father. He is our father Isaac. ^11-12 But before the two sons were born, God told Rebecca, “The older son will serve the younger.”^[h] This was before the boys had done anything good or bad. God said this before they were born so that the boy he wanted would be chosen because of God’s own plan. He was chosen because he was the one God wanted to call, not because of anything the boys did. ¹³ As the Scriptures say, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.”^[i]

¹⁴ So what does this mean? That God is not fair? We cannot say that. ¹⁵ God said to Moses, “I will show mercy to anyone I want to show mercy to. I will show pity to anyone I choose.”^{[j] 16} So God will choose anyone he decides to show mercy to, and his choice does not depend on what people want or try to do. ¹⁷ In the Scriptures God says to Pharaoh: “I made you king so that you could do this for me. I wanted to show my power through you. I wanted my name to be announced throughout the world.”^{[k] 18} So God shows mercy to those he wants to show mercy to and makes stubborn those he wants to make stubborn.

¹⁹ So one of you will ask me, “If God controls what we do, why does he blame us for our sins?” ²⁰ Don’t ask that. You are only human and have no right to question God. A clay jar does not question the one who made it. It does not say, “Why did you make me like this?” ²¹ The one who makes the jar can make anything he wants. He uses the same clay to make different things. He might make one thing for special purposes and another for daily use.

²² It is the same way with what God has done. He wanted to show his anger and to let people see his power. But he patiently endured those he was angry with—people who were ready to be destroyed. ²³ He waited with patience so that he could make known the riches of his glory to the people he has chosen to receive his mercy. God has already prepared them to share his glory. ²⁴ We are those people, the ones God chose not only from the Jews but also from those who are not Jews. ²⁵ As the Scriptures say in the book of Hosea,

²⁶ And,

²⁷ And Isaiah cries out about Israel:

²⁹ It is just as Isaiah said:

³⁰ So what does all this mean? It means that people who are not Jews were made right with God because of their faith, even though they were not trying to make themselves right. ³¹ And the people of Israel, who tried to make themselves right with God by following the law, did not succeed. ³² They failed because they tried to make themselves right by the things they did. They did not trust in God to make them right. They fell over the stone that makes people fall. ³³ The Scriptures talk about that stone: