proved to be God's Son in power by the resurrection from the dead -- I mean, Jesus Christ, our Lord,

through whom we have received God's favor and a commission as an apostle in His name to urge upon all the heathen obedience inspired by faith,

to all those in Rome who are God's loved ones, called to be His people: spiritual blessing and peace be yours from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Indeed, my witness is God, whom I serve in my spirit by telling the good news about His Son, that I never fail to mention you every time I pray,

always entreating God that somehow by His will I may some day at last succeed in getting to see you.

For I am longing to see you, to impart to you some spiritual gift, that you may be strengthened;

in other words, that we may be mutually encouraged, while I am with you, by one another's faith, yours and mine.

For in the good news God's Way of man's right standing with Him is uncovered, the Way of faith that leads to greater faith, just as the Scripture says, "The upright man must live by faith."

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.

Forever since the creation of the world, His invisible characteristics -- His eternal power and divine nature -- have been made intelligible and clearly visible by His works. So they are without excuse,

Though claiming to be wise, they made fools of themselves,

and males too have forsaken the natural function of females and been consumed by flaming passion for one another, males practicing shameful vice with other males, and continuing to suffer in their persons the inevitable penalty for doing what is improper.

But in your stubbornness and impenitence of heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when the justice of God's judgments will be uncovered.

For when He finally judges, He will pay everyone with exactness for what he has done,

All who sin without having the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.

For merely hearing the law read does not make men upright with God, but men who practice the law will be recognized as upright.

and understand His will, and by being instructed in the law can know the things that excel,

You who boast about the law, do you by breaking it dishonor God?

So if the uncircumcised heathen man observes the just demands of the law, will he not be counted as though he were a Jew?

Not at all. Let God prove true, though every man be false! As the Scripture says, "That you may prove yourself upright in words you speak, and win your case when you go into court."

Now we know that everything the law says is spoken to those who are under its authority, that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world be held responsible to God.

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.

For we hold that a man is brought into right standing with God by faith, that observance of the law has no connection with it.

Now when a workman gets his pay, it is not considered from the point of view of a favor but of an obligation;

Afterward he received the mark of circumcision as God's seal of his right standing with Him on condition of faith which he had before he was circumcised, that he might be the forefather of all who have faith while still uncircumcised, that they might have their faith credited to them as right standing with God;

For the law results in wrath alone, but where there is no law, there can be no violation of it.

So it is conditioned on faith, that it might be in accordance with God's unmerited favor, so that the promise might be in force for all the descendants of Abraham, not only for those who belong to the law party but also for those who belong to the faith group of Abraham. He is the father of us all,

Abraham, building on hope in spite of hopeless circumstances, had faith, and so he actually became the father of many nations, just as it had been told him, "So numberless shall your descendants be."

it was for our sakes too, for it is going to be credited to us who put our faith in God who raised from the dead our Lord Jesus,

by whom we have an introduction through faith into this state of God's favor, in which we safely stand; and let us continue exulting in the hope of enjoying the glorious presence of God.

But God proves His love for us by the fact that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

So if we have already been brought into right standing with God by Christ's death, it is much more certain that by Him we shall be saved from God's wrath.

For if while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, it is much more certain that since we have been reconciled we shall finally be saved through His new life.

But God's free gift is not at all to be compared with the offense. For if by one man's offense the whole race of men have died, to a much greater degree God's favor and His gift imparted by His favor through the one man Jesus Christ, has overflowed for the whole race of men.

And the gift is not fit all to be compared with the results of that one man's sin. For that sentence resulted from the offense of one man, and it meant condemnation, but the free gift resulted from the offenses of many, and it meant right standing.

For if by one man's offense death reigned through that one, to a much greater degree will those who continue to receive the overflow of His unmerited favor and His gift of right standing with Himself, reign in real life through One, Jesus Christ.

For just as by that man's disobedience the whole race of men were constituted sinners, so by this One's obedience the whole race of men may be brought into right standing with God.

so that just as sin had reigned by death, so His favor too might reign in right standing with God which issues in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So through baptism we have been buried with Him in death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father's glorious power, so we too should live an entirely new life.

For if we have grown into fellowship with Him by sharing a death like His, surely we shall share a resurrection life like His,

for we know that our former self was crucified with Him, to make our body that is liable to sin inactive, so that we might not a moment longer continue to be slaves to sin.

For by the death He died He once for all ended His relation to sin, and by the life He now is living He lives in unbroken relation to God.

For the wages paid by sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life through union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is freed from the marriage bond.

So if she marries another man while her husband is living, she is called an adulteress, but if he dies, she is free from that marriage bond, so that she will not be an adulteress though later married to another man.

So, my brothers, you too in the body of Christ have ended your relation to the law, so that you may be married to another husband, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

For when we were living in accordance with our lower nature, the sinful passions that were aroused by the law were operating in the parts of our bodies to make us bear fruit that leads to death.

But now we have been freed from our relation to the law; we have ended our relation to that by which we once were held in bonds, so that we may serve in a new spiritual way and not in the old literalistic way.

Did that which is good, then, result in death to me? Of course not! It was sin that did it, so that it might show itself as sin, for by means of that good thing it brought about my death, so that through the command sin might appear surpassingly sinful.

but I see another power operating in my lower nature in conflict with the power operated by my reason, which makes me a prisoner to the power of sin which is operating in my lower nature.

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,

so that the requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live by the standard set by our lower nature, but by the standard set by the Spirit.

For people who live by the standard set by their lower nature are usually thinking the things suggested by that nature, and people who live by the standard set by the Spirit are usually thinking the things suggested by the Spirit.

For to be thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means death, but to be thinking the things suggested by the Spirit means life and peace.

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.

So, brothers, we are under obligations, but not to our lower nature to live by the standard set by it;

for if you live by such a standard, you are going to die, but if by the Spirit you put a stop to the doings of your lower nature, you will live.

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

For you do not have a sense of servitude to fill you with dread again, but the consciousness of adopted sons by which we cry, "Abba," that is, "Father."

For I consider all that we suffer in this present life is nothing to be compared with the glory which by-and-by is to be uncovered for us.

For nature did not of its own accord give up to failure; it was for the sake of Him who let it thus be given up, in the hope

that even nature itself might finally be set free from its bondage to decay, so as to share the glorious freedom of God's children.

For those on whom He set His heart beforehand He marked off as His own to be made like His Son, that He might be the eldest of many brothers;

What are we then to say to facts like these? If God is for us, who can be against us?

As the Scripture says: "For your sake we are being put to death the livelong day; we are treated like sheep to be slaughtered."

nor evil forces above or beneath, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God as shown in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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,

the patriarchs, and from them by natural descent the Christ has come, who is exalted over all, God blessed forever. Amen!

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."

That is, it is not Abraham's natural descendants who are God's children, but those who are made children by the promise are counted his true descendants.

Not only that but this too: There was Rebecca who was impregnated by our forefather Isaac.

she was told, "The elder will be a slave to the younger."

And in the place where it was said, '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 numberless as the sands of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,

as the Scripture says: "See, I put on Zion a stone for causing people to stumble, a rock to trip them on, but no one who puts his faith in it will ever be put to shame."

Brothers, my heart's good will goes out for them, and my prayer to God is that they may be saved.

For Moses says of the law-way to right standing with God that whoever can perform the law will live by it.

For if with your lips you acknowledge the fact that Jesus is Lord, and in your hearts you believe that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

For the Scripture says, "No one who puts his faith in Him will ever be put to shame."

For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Then Isaiah was bold enough to say: "I have been found by a people who were not searching for me; I have made known myself to people who were not asking to know me."

But if it is by His unmerited favor, it is not at all conditioned on what they have done. If that were so, His favor would not be favor at all.

Let their eyes be darkened, so they cannot see, and forever bend their backs beneath the load."

But if their stumbling has resulted in the enrichment of the world, and their overthrow becomes the enrichment of heathen peoples, how much richer the result will be when the full quota of Jews comes in!

For if the rejection of them has resulted in the reconciling of the world, what will the result be of the final reception of them but life from the dead?

you must not be boasting against the natural branches. And if you do, just consider, you do not support the root, but the root supports you.

Then you will say, "Branches have been broken off for us to be grafted in."

Very well, but it was for lack of faith that they were broken off, and it is through your faith that you now stand where you are. Stop your haughty thinking, rather continue to be reverent,

So take a look at the goodness and the severity of God; severity to those who have fallen, but goodness to you, on condition that you continue to live by His goodness; otherwise, you too will be pruned away.

And they too, if they do not continue to live by their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is amply able to graft them in.

For if you were cut off from an olive wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted on to a fine olive stock, how much easier will it be for the natural branches to be grafted on to their own olive stock?

and so in that way all Israel will be saved, just as the Scripture says: "From Zion the Deliverer will come; He will remove ungodliness from Jacob;

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,

Or who has ever advanced God anything to have Him pay him back?

Stop living in accordance with the customs of this world, but by the new ideals that mold your minds continue to transform yourselves, so as to find and follow God's will; that is, what is good, well-pleasing to Him, and perfect.

As we have gifts that differ in accordance with the favor God has shown us, if it is that of preaching, let it be done in proportion to our faith;

Your love must be true. You must always turn in horror from what is wrong, but keep on holding to what is right.

In brotherly love be affectionate to one another, in personal honors put one another to the fore,

Stop taking revenge on one another, beloved, but leave a place for God's anger, for the Scripture says, "Vengeance belongs to me; I will pay them back, says the Lord."

Stop being conquered by evil, but keep on conquering evil with good.