Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—

God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,

There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile;

but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.

They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)

if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark,

The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.

Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.

Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.”

As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;

All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.

I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.

But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.

not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”

even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?