through whom we have received God's favor and been commissioned in his name to urge obedience and faith upon all the heathen,

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.

I want you to understand, brothers, that I have often intended to come to see you (though thus far I have been prevented) in order to produce some results among you, as well as among the rest of the heathen.

Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible nature??is eternal power and divine character??ave been clearly perceptible through what he has made. So they have no excuse,

and men too in the same way have disregarded the natural function of women and been consumed with passion for one another, men for men, acting indecently, and experiencing in their own persons the inevitable penalty of what they have done.

But now God's way of uprightness has been disclosed without any reference to law, though the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it.

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

So as we have been made upright by faith, let us live in peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

by whom we have been introduced through faith to the favor of God that we now enjoy, and let us glory in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

and hope will not disappoint us. For, through the holy Spirit that has been given us, God's love has flooded our hearts.

So if we have already been made upright by his death, it is far more certain that through him we shall be saved from God's anger!

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into union with Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?

Through baptism we have been buried with him in death, so that just as he was raised from the dead through the Father's glory, we too may live a new life.

and so you have been freed from sin, and made slaves of uprightness.

But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you get is consecration, and the final result is eternal life.

Then what shall we conclude? That the Law is sin? Certainly not! Yet, if it had not been for the Law, I should never have learned what sin was; I should not have known what it was to covet if the Law had not said, "You must not covet."

It is not a consciousness of servitude that has been imparted to you, to fill you with fear again, but the consciousness of adoption as sons, which makes us cry, "Abba!" that is, Father.

We know that all creation has been groaning in agony together until now.

As Isaiah foretold, "If the Lord of Hosts had not left us children, We would have been like Sodom, and have resembled Gomorrah!"

Then Isaiah broke out boldly and said, "I have been found by men who were not looking for me, I have shown myself to men who were not asking what my will was."

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you who were only a wild olive shoot have been grafted in, in place of them, and made to share the richness of the olive's root,

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,

In all this it has been my ambition to preach the good news only where Christ's name was unknown, so as not to build on foundations other men had laid.

As the Scripture says, "They who have never been told of him will see, And they who have never heard will understand!"

This is why I have so often been prevented from coming to see you.

Welcome her as a Christian, as God's people should welcome one another, and give her whatever help she may need from you. For she has herself been a protection to many, including myself.

Remember me to Rufus, that eminent Christian, and to his mother, who has been a mother to me.