Romans 1:26

26 Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn't know how to be human either - women didn't know how to be women, men didn't know how to be men.

Romans 1:26 Meaning and Commentary

Romans 1:26

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections
Because of their idolatrous practices, God left them to very dishonourable actions, sodomitical ones, both among the men and women:

for even the women did change the natural use into that which is
against nature;
either by prostituting themselves to, and complying with the "sodomitical" embraces of men, in a way that is against nature F8; or by making use of such ways and methods with themselves, or other women, to gratify their lusts, which were never designed by nature for such an use: of these vicious women, and their practices, Seneca F9 speaks, when he says,

``libidine veto nec maribus quidem cedunt, pati natae; Dii illas Deoeque, male perdant; adeo perversum commentae, genus impudicitiae, viros ineunt:''

also Clemens Alexandrinus F11 has respect to such, saying,

``(gunaikev andrizontai para fusin, gamou men ai te kai) (gamousai gunaikev) ''

and such there were among the Jews, whom they call (wzb wz twllwomx) (Myvn) F12, and whom the priests were forbidden to marry.


FOOTNOTES:

F8 Vid. R. Sol Jarchi in Gen. xxiv. 16.
F9 Epist. 95.
F11 Paedagog. l. 3. p. 226.
F12 T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 65. 2. Piske Tosaph. ib. artic. 266. Yevamot, fol. 76. 1. & Piske Tosaph. ib. art. 141. Maimonides in Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 7. sect. 4. & Hilchot Issure Bia, c. 21. sect. 8, 9.

Romans 1:26 In-Context

24 So God said, in effect, "If that's what you want, that's what you get." It wasn't long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out.
25 And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them - the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!
26 Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn't know how to be human either - women didn't know how to be women, men didn't know how to be men.
27 Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men - all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it - emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.
28 Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.