First, through Jesus Christ I thank my God for you all, because the report of your faith is spreading all over the world.

because what can be known of God is clear to their inner moral sense; for in this way God Himself has shown it to them.

because, although they once knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give Him thanks, but became silly in their senseless speculations, and so their insensible hearts have been shrouded in darkness.

because they overflow with every sort of evil-doing, wickedness, greed, and malice; they are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, ill-will;

for they show that the deeds the law demands are written on their hearts, because their consciences will testify for them, and their inner thoughts will either accuse or defend them,

For, as the Scripture says, the name of God is abused among the heathen because of you.

But, as you say, if the truthfulness of God has redounded to His glory because of my falsehood, why am I still condemned as a sinner?

Because no human creature can be brought into right standing with God by observing the law. For all the law can do is to make men conscious of sin.

Because he never weakened in faith, he calmly contemplated his own vital powers as worn out (for he was about one hundred years old) and the inability of Sarah to bear a child,

and yet he never staggered in doubt at the promise of God but grew powerful in faith, because he gave the glory to God

who was given up to death because of our shortcomings and was raised again to give us right standing with God.

So here is the comparison: As through one man sin came into the world, and death as the consequence of sin, and death spread to all men; because all men sinned.

What are we to conclude? Are we to keep on sinning, because we are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor? Never!

I am speaking in familiar human terms because of the frailty of your nature. For just as you formerly offered the parts of your bodies in slavery to impurity and to ever increasing lawlessness, so now you must once for all offer them in slavery to right-doing, which leads to consecration.

For though the law could not do it, because it was made helpless through our lower nature, yet God, by sending His own Son in a body similar to that of our lower nature, and as a sacrifice for sin, passed sentence upon sin through His body,

Because one's thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means enmity to God, for it does not subject itself to God's law, nor indeed can it.

But if Christ lives in you, although your bodies must die because of sin, your spirits are now enjoying life because of right standing with God.

I am telling the truth as a Christian man. I am telling no lie, because my conscience enlightened by the Holy Spirit is bearing me witness to this fact,

nor are they all children of Abraham, because they are his descendants, but the promise was "In the line of Isaac your descendants will I be counted."

Why? Because they did not try through faith but through what they could do. They have stumbled over the stone that causes people to stumble,

But there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is over them all, because He is infinitely kind to all who call upon Him.

I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall in utter ruin, did they? Of course not! On the contrary, because of their stumbling, salvation has come to heathen peoples, to make the Israelites jealous.

As measured by the good news the Jews are God's enemies for your sakes, but as measured by God's choice they are His beloved because of their forefathers,

For just as you once disobeyed God, but now have had mercy shown you because of their disobedience,

so they too are now disobedient because of the mercy shown you, that they too may now have mercy shown them.

Do this in particular because you know the present crisis, that it is high time for you to wake up out of your sleep, for our salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed.

For if your brother is hurt because of the food you eat, you are not living by the standard of love. Stop ruining, by what you eat, the man for whom Christ died.

But the man who has misgivings about eating, if he then eats, has already condemned himself by so doing, because he did not follow his faith, and any action that does not follow one's faith is a sin.

And yet, to refresh your memories, I have written you rather freely on some details, because of the unmerited favor shown me by God