Beginning

A Prayer of Thanks

1 From Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus. God called me to be an apostle and chose me to tell the Good News.

² God promised this Good News long ago through his prophets. That promise is written in the Holy Scriptures. ^3-4 The Good News is about God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. As a man, he was born from the family of David. But through the Spirit of holiness he was declared to be God’s Son with great power by rising from death. ⁵ Through Christ, God gave me the special work of an apostle. This was to lead people of all nations to believe and obey. I do this work for Christ. ⁶ And you who are in Rome are also called to belong to Jesus Christ.

⁷ This letter is to all of you in Rome whom God loves and has called to be his holy people.

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ show you kindness and give you peace.

⁸ First I want to say that I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you. I thank God because people everywhere in the world are talking about your great faith. ^9-10 God knows that every time I pray I always mention you. God is the One I serve with my whole heart by telling the Good News about his Son. I pray that I will be allowed to come to you, and this will happen if God wants it. ¹¹ I want very much to see you, to give you some spiritual gift to make you strong. ¹² I mean that I want us to help each other with the faith that we have. Your faith will help me, and my faith will help you. ¹³ Brothers, I want you to know that I planned many times to come to you. But this has not been possible. I wanted to come so that I could help you grow spiritually. I wanted to help you as I have helped the other non-Jewish people.

¹⁴ I must serve all people—Greeks and non-Greeks, the wise and the foolish. ¹⁵ That is why I want so much to preach the Good News to you in Rome.

¹⁶ I am not ashamed of the Good News. It is the power God uses to save everyone who believes—to save the Jews first, and then to save the non-Jews. ¹⁷ The Good News shows how God makes people right with himself. God’s way of making people right with him begins and ends with faith. As the Scripture says, “The person who is made right with God by faith will live forever.”^[a]

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.

You People Also Are Sinful

2 If you think that you can judge others, then you are wrong. You too are guilty of sin. You judge people, but you do the same bad things they do. So when you judge them, you are really judging yourself guilty. ² God judges those who do wrong things. And we know that God’s judging is right. ³ You judge those who do wrong, but you do wrong yourselves. Do you think you will be able to escape the judgment of God? ⁴ God has been very kind to you, and he has been patient with you. God has been waiting for you to change. But you think nothing of his kindness. Perhaps you do not understand that God is kind to you so that you will change your hearts and lives. ⁵ But you are hard and stubborn and refuse to change. So you are making your own punishment greater and greater on the day God shows his anger. On that day all people will see God’s right judgments. ⁶ God will reward or punish every person for what he has done. ⁷ Some people live for God’s glory, for honor, and for life that has no end. They live for those things by always continuing to do good. God will give life forever to them. ⁸ But other people are selfish and refuse to follow truth. They follow evil. God will give them his punishment and anger. ⁹ He will give trouble and suffering to everyone who does evil—to the Jews first and also to the non-Jews. ¹⁰ But God will give glory, honor, and peace to everyone who does good—to the Jews first and also to the non-Jews. ¹¹ For God judges all people in the same way.

¹² People who have God’s law and those who have never heard of the law are all the same when they sin. Those who do not have the law and are sinners will be lost. And, in the same way, people who have the law and are sinners will be judged by the law. ¹³ Hearing the law does not make people right with God. The law makes people right with God only if they obey what the law says. ¹⁴ (The non-Jews do not have the law. But when they freely do things that the law commands, then they are the law for themselves. This is true even though they do not have the law. ¹⁵ They show that in their hearts they know what is right and wrong, just as the law commands. And they also show this by the way they feel about right and wrong. Sometimes their thoughts tell them they did wrong. And sometimes their thoughts tell them they did right.) ¹⁶ All these things will happen on the day when God will judge the secret thoughts of people’s hearts. The Good News that I preach says that God will judge everyone through Christ Jesus.

The Jews and the Law

¹⁷ What about you? You call yourself a Jew. You trust in the law of Moses and brag that you are close to God. ¹⁸ You know what God wants you to do. And you know the things that are important because you have learned the law. ¹⁹ You think you are a guide for the blind and a light for those who are in darkness. ²⁰ You think you can show foolish people what is right and teach those who know nothing. You have the law; so you think you know everything and have all truth. ²¹ You teach other people. So why don’t you teach yourself? You tell others not to steal. But you yourselves steal. ²² You say that others must not take part in adultery. But you yourselves are guilty of that sin. You hate idols. But you steal from temples. ²³ You brag about having God’s law. But you bring shame to God by breaking his law. ²⁴ It is written in the Scriptures: “The non-Jews speak against God’s name because of you Jews.”^[b]

²⁵ If you follow the law, then your circumcision has meaning. But if you break the law, then it is as if you were never circumcised. ²⁶ The non-Jews are not circumcised. But if they do what the law says, then it is as if they were circumcised. ²⁷ You Jews have the written law and circumcision, but you break the law. So those who are not circumcised in their bodies, but still obey the law, will show that you are guilty.

²⁸ A person is not a true Jew if he is only a Jew in his physical body. True circumcision is not only on the outside of the body. ²⁹ A person is a true Jew only if he is a Jew inside. True circumcision is done in the heart by the Spirit, not by the written law. Such a person gets praise from God, not from other people.

3 So, do Jews have anything that other people do not have? Is there anything special about being circumcised? ² Yes, of course, there is in every way. The most important thing is this: God trusted the Jews with his teachings. ³ It is true that some Jews were not faithful to God. But will that stop God from doing what he promised? ⁴ No! God will continue to be true even when every person is false. As the Scriptures say:

⁵ When we do wrong, that shows more clearly that God is right. So can we say that God is wrong to punish us? (I am talking as men might talk.) ⁶ No! If God could not punish us, then God could not judge the world.

⁷ A person might say, “When I lie, it really gives God glory, because my lie shows God’s truth. So why am I judged a sinner?” ⁸ It would be the same to say, “We should do evil so that good will come.” Some people find fault with us and say that we teach this. Those who say such things about us are wrong, and they should be punished.

All People Are Guilty

⁹ So are we Jews better than others? No! We have already said that Jews and non-Jews are the same. They are all guilty of sin. ¹⁰ As the Scriptures say:

¹⁹ The law commands many things. We know that those commands are for those who are under the law. This stops all excuses and brings the whole world under God’s judgment, ²⁰ because no one can be made right with God by following the law. The law only shows us our sin.

How God Makes People Right

²¹ But God has a way to make people right with him without the law. And God has now shown us that way which the law and the prophets told us about. ²² God makes people right with himself through their faith in Jesus Christ. This is true for all who believe in Christ, because all are the same. ²³ All people have sinned and are not good enough for God’s glory. ²⁴ People are made right with God by his grace, which is a free gift. They are made right with God by being made free from sin through Jesus Christ. ²⁵ God sent him to die in our place to take away our sins. We receive forgiveness through faith. And all of this is because of the blood of Jesus’ death. This showed that God always does what is right and fair. God was right in the past when he was patient and did not punish people for their sins. ²⁶ And God gave Jesus to show today that God does what is right. God did this so that he could judge rightly and also make right any person who has faith in Jesus.

²⁷ So do we have a reason to brag about ourselves? No! And why not? It is the way of faith that stops all bragging, not the way of following the law. ²⁸ A person is made right with God through faith, not through what he does to follow the law. ²⁹ Is God only the God of the Jews? Is he not also the God of the non-Jews? ³⁰ Of course he is, for there is only one God. He will make Jews right with him by their faith. And he will also make non-Jews right with him through their faith. ³¹ So do we destroy the law by following the way of faith? No! Faith causes us to be what the law truly wants.