Greeting
1 Paul,
1a servant of Christ Jesus,
2called to be an apostle,
3set apart for the gospel of God,
2
which
4he promised beforehand
5through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,
3
concerning his Son,
6who was descended from David
7according to the flesh
4
and
8was declared to be the Son of God
9in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
5
through whom
10we have received grace and
11apostleship
12to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name
13among all the nations,
6
including you who are
14called to belong to Jesus Christ,
7
To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:
15Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Longing to Go to Rome
8 First,
16I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you,
17because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.
9
18For God is my witness,
19whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son,
20that without ceasing I mention you
10
always in my prayers, asking that somehow
21by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.
11
For
22I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you--
12
that is, that we may be mutually encouraged
23by each other's faith, both yours and mine.
13
I want you to know, brothers, that
24I have often intended to come to you (but
25thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some
26harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.
14
27I am under obligation both to Greeks and to
28barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
15
So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
16 For
29I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is
30the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew
31first and also to
32the Greek.
17
For in it
33the righteousness of God is revealed
34from faith for faith,
35as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."
God's Wrath on Unrighteousness
18 For
36the wrath of God
37is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
19
For what can be
38known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,
39have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
21
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they
40became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22
41Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
23
and
42exchanged the glory of
43the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24
Therefore
44God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to
45the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
25
because they exchanged the truth about God for
46a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator,
47who is blessed forever! Amen.
26
For this reason
48God gave them up to
49dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;
27
and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another,
50men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God,
51God gave them up to
52a debased mind to do
53what ought not to be done.
29
They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
30
slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31
foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32
Though they know
54God's decree that those who practice such things
55deserve to die, they not only do them but
56give approval to those who practice them.