Parallel Bible results for "Romans 1"

Romans 1

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1 I, Paul, am a devoted slave of Jesus Christ on assignment, authorized as an apostle to proclaim God's words and acts. I write this letter to all the Christians in Rome, God's friends.
1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—
2 The sacred writings contain preliminary reports by the prophets
2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures
3 on God's Son. His descent from David roots him in history;
3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David,
4 his unique identity as Son of God was shown by the Spirit when Jesus was raised from the dead, setting him apart as the Messiah, our Master.
4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
5 Through him we received both the generous gift of his life and the urgent task of passing it on to others who receive it by entering into obedient trust in Jesus.
5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake.
6 You are who you are through this gift and call of Jesus Christ!
6 And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
7 And I greet you now with all the generosity of God our Father and our Master Jesus, the Messiah.
7 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
8 I thank God through Jesus for every one of you. That's first. People everywhere keep telling me about your lives of faith, and every time I hear them, I thank him.
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.
9 And God, whom I so love to worship and serve by spreading the good news of his Son - the Message! - knows that every time I think of you
9 God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you
10 in my prayers, which is practically all the time, I ask him to clear the way for me to come and see you.
10 in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.
11 The longer this waiting goes on, the deeper the ache. I so want to be there to deliver God's gift in person and watch you grow stronger right before my eyes!
11 I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—
12 But don't think I'm not expecting to get something out of this, too! You have as much to give me as I do to you.
12 that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.
13 Please don't misinterpret my failure to visit you, friends. You have no idea how many times I've made plans for Rome. I've been determined to get some personal enjoyment out of God's work among you, as I have in so many other non-Jewish towns and communities. But something has always come up and prevented it.
13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.
14 Everyone I meet - it matters little whether they're mannered or rude, smart or simple - deepens my sense of interdependence and obligation.
14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish.
15 And that's why I can't wait to get to you in Rome, preaching this wonderful good news of God.
15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.
16 It's news I'm most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God's powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else!
16 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.
17 God's way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: "The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives." Ignoring God Leads to a Downward Spiral
17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
18 But God's angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth.
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
19 But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is!
19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20 By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life.
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
23 They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
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.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
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!
25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
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.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
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.
27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.
29 And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous,
29 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,
30 fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way.
30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
31 Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded.
31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
32 And it's not as if they don't know better. They know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care - worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!
32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
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.
Scripture quoted by permission.  Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.  NIV®.  Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica.  All rights reserved worldwide.