including you who have been called to belong to Jesus Christ??7 to all those in Rome whom God loves, who are called to be his people; God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ bless you and give you peace.

For God's anger is breaking forth from heaven against all the impiety and wickedness of the men who in their wickedness are suppressing the truth.

They revel in every kind of wrongdoing, wickedness, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, and ill-nature.

They are gossips, slanderers, abhorrent to God, insolent, overbearing, boastful, ingenious in evil, undutiful,

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, if you pose as a judge, for when you pass judgment on someone else, you are condemning yourself, for you, who sit in judgment, do the very same things yourself.

But in your obstinacy and impenitence you are storing up wrath for yourself on the Day of Wrath, when the justice of God will burst forth.

but self-seeking people who are disloyal to the truth and responsive only to what is wrong will experience anger and fury,

When heathen who have no Law instinctively obey what the Law demands, even though they have no law they are a law to themselves,

and you are sure that you can guide the blind, enlighten people who are in the dark,

Circumcision will help you only if you observe the Law; but if you are a lawbreaker, you might as well be uncircumcised.

So if people who are uncircumcised observe the requirements of the Law, will they not be treated as though they were circumcised?

And if, although they are physically uncircumcised, they obey the Law, they will condemn you, who break the Law, although you have it in writing, and are circumcised.

But if our wrongdoing brings out the uprightness of God, what are we to say? Is it wrong in God (I am putting it in ordinary human terms) to inflict punishment?

What does this mean? Are we Jews at a disadvantage? Not at all. We have already charged Jews and Greeks all alike with being under the control of sin.

All have turned away, they are one and all worthless, No one does right, not a single one!

Their throats are like open graves, They use their tongues to deceive; The venom of asps is behind their lips,

And their mouths are full of bitter curses.

Their feet are swift when it comes to shedding blood,

but by his mercy they are made upright for nothing, by the deliverance secured through Christ Jesus.

Then what are we to say about our ancestor Abraham?

"Happy are they whose violations of the Law have been forgiven, whose sins are covered up!

Does this happiness apply to those who are circumcised, or to those who are uncircumcised as well? What we say is, Abraham's faith was credited to him as uprightness.

and he was afterward given the mark of circumcision as the stamp of God's acknowledgment of the uprightness based on faith that was his before he was circumcised, so that he should be the forefather of all who, without being circumcised, have faith and so are credited with uprightness,

For if it is the adherents of the Law who are to possess it, faith is nullified and the promise amounts to nothing!

That is why it all turns upon faith; it is to make it a matter of God's favor, so that the promise may hold good for all Abraham's descendants, not only those who are adherents of the Law, but also those who share the faith of Abraham. For he is the father of all of us;

If, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, it is far more certain that now that we are reconciled we shall be saved through sharing in his life!

It is true sin was in the world before the Law was given, and men are not charged with sin where there is no law.

Then what shall we conclude? Are we to continue to sin to increase the spread of mercy?

What follows, then? Are we to sin, because we live not under law but under mercy? Certainly not!

Do you not know that when you submit to being someone's slaves, and obeying him, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey, whether your slavery is to sin, and leads to death, or is to obedience, and leads to uprightness?

What good did you get from doing the things you are now ashamed of? Why, they result in death!

So there is no condemnation any more for those who are in union with Christ Jesus.

People who are controlled by the physical think of what is physical, and people who are controlled by the spiritual think of what is spiritual.

Those who are physical cannot please God.

But you are not physical but spiritual, if God's Spirit has really taken possession of you; for unless a man has Christ's spirit, he does not belong to Christ.

But if Christ is in your hearts, though your bodies are dead in consequence of sin, your spirits have life in consequence of uprightness.

So, brothers, we are under obligations, but not to the physical nature, to live under its control,

For all who are guided by God's Spirit are God's sons.

The Spirit itself testifies with our spirits that we are God's children,

As the Scripture says, "For your sake we are being put to death all day long, We are treated like sheep to be slaughtered."

But in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us.

For they are Israelites, and to them belong the rights of sonship, God's glorious presence, the divine agreements and legislation, the Temple service, the promises,

nor are they all children of Abraham because they are descended from him, but he was told, "The line of Isaac will be called your descendants."

That is to say, it is not his physical descendants who are children of God, but his descendants born in fulfilment of the promise who are considered his true posterity.

On the contrary, who are you, my friend, to answer back to God? Can something a man shapes say to the man who shaped it, "Why did you make me like this?"

And in the very place where they were told, 'You are no people of mine,' They shall be called sons of the living God."

And Isaiah cries out about Israel, "Although the sons of Israel are as numerous as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,

For with their minds men believe and are made upright, and with their lips they make the acknowledgment and are saved.

But how are they to call upon him if they have not believed in him? And how are they to believe him if they have never heard him? And how are they to hear unless someone preaches to them?

And how are men to preach unless they are sent to do it? As the Scripture says, "How welcome is the coming of those who bring good news!"

"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, I am the only one left and they are trying to take my life."

But it is to you who are of the heathen that I am speaking. So far then as I am an apostle to the heathen, I make the most of my ministry,

If the first handful of dough is consecrated, the whole mass is, and if the root of a tree is consecrated, so are its branches.

From the point of view of the good news they are treated as enemies of God on your account; but from the point of view of God's choice, they are dear to him because of their forefathers,

so they are now disobedient in order that they in turn may experience the same mercy as you.

How inexhaustible God's resources, wisdom, and knowledge are! How unfathomable his decisions are, and how untraceable his ways!

For just as there are many parts united in our human bodies, and the parts do not all have the same function,

so, many as we are, we form one body through union with Christ, and we are individually parts of one another.

Do not pay anyone back with evil for evil. See that you are above reproach in the eyes of everyone.

Everyone must obey the authorities that are over him, for no authority can exist without the permission of God; the existing authorities have been established by him,

for they are God's agents to do you good. But if you do wrong you may well be afraid, for they do not carry swords for nothing. They are God's servants, to execute his wrath upon wrongdoers.

just as you pay your taxes; they are God's ministers, devoting themselves to this service.

For the commandments, "You must not commit adultery, You must not murder, You must not steal, You must not covet," and any other commandments there are, are all summed up in one saying, "You must love your neighbor as you do yourself."

Treat people who are overscrupulous in their faith like brothers; do not criticize their views.

Who are you to criticize someone else's servant? It is for his own master to say whether he succeeds or fails; and he will succeed, for the Master can make him do so.

if we live, we are responsible to the Lord, and if we die, we are responsible to him; so whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

For if your brother's feelings are hurt by what you eat, your life is not governed by love. You must not, by what you eat, ruin a man for whom Christ died.

It is the duty of us who are strong to put up with the weaknesses of those who are immature, and not just suit ourselves.

For my part, as far as you are concerned, my brothers, I am convinced that you are already full of goodness of heart, endowed with perfect knowledge, and well qualified to instruct one another.

in making me a minister of Christ Jesus among the heathen, to act as a priest of God's good news, to see that the heathen are an acceptable sacrifice, consecrated by the holy Spirit.

They determined to do it, and they really are indebted to them, for if the heathen have shared their spiritual blessings, they ought to do them a service in material ways.

Pray that I may escape from those in Judea who are disobedient, and that the help I am taking to Jerusalem may be well received by God's people,

Remember me to Andronicus and Junias, my fellow-countrymen, who went to prison with me. They are noted men among the missionaries, and they became Christians before I did.

Such men are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own base passions, and with their plausible and flattering talk they deceive simple-minded people.