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.

Although they know full well God's sentence that those who practice such things deserve to die, yet they not only practice them but even applaud others who do them.

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.

but wrath and fury, crushing suffering and awful anguish, to the self-willed who are always resisting the right and yielding to the wrong,

But glory, honor, and peace will come to everyone who practices doing good, the Jew first and then the Greek;

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

Now circumcision benefits you only if you practice the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision is no better than uncircumcision.

The real Jew is the man who is a Jew on the inside, and real circumcision is heart-circumcision, a spiritual, not a literal, affair. This man's praise originates, not with men, but with God.

But if our wrongdoing brings to light the uprightness of God, what shall we infer? Is it wrong (I am using everyday human terms) for God to inflict punishment?

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?

But now God's way of giving men right standing with Himself has come to light; a way without connection with the law, and yet a way to which the law and the prophets testify.

but anybody may have right standing with God as a free gift of His undeserved favor, through the ransom provided in Christ Jesus.

So where has human boasting gone? It was completely shut out. On what principle? On that of doing something? No, but on the principle of faith.

since there is but one God, who will consider the Jews in right standing with Himself, only on condition of their faith, and the heathen peoples on the same condition.

For if he was considered in right standing with God on the condition of what he did, he has something to boast of, but not before God.

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

but the man who does no work, but simply puts his faith in Him who brings the ungodly into right standing with Himself, has his faith credited to him as right standing.

Under what circumstances was it credited to him as right standing? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? Not after but before he was circumcised.

and the forefather of those Jews who not only belong to the circumcision but also follow in the footsteps of our forefather Abraham in the faith he had before he was circumcised.

For the promise made to Abraham and his descendants, that he should own the world, was not conditioned on the law, but on the right standing he had with God through faith.

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,

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

And not only that, but this too: let us continue exulting in our sufferings, for we know that suffering produces endurance,

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

And not only that, but this too: we shall continue exulting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained our reconciliation.

Certainly sin was in the world before the law was given, but it is not charged to men's account where there is no law.

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.

So you too must consider yourselves as having ended your relation to sin but living in unbroken relation to God.

and you must stop offering to sin the parts of your bodies as instruments for wrongdoing, but you must once for all offer yourselves to God as persons raised from the dead to live on perpetually, and once for all offer the parts of your bodies to God as instruments for right-doing.

For sin must not any longer exert its mastery over you, for now you are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor.

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!

But, thank God, that though you once were slaves of sin, you became obedient from your hearts to that form of teaching in which you have been instructed,

But now, since you have been freed from sin and have become the slaves of God, the immediate result is consecration, and the final destiny is eternal life.

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.

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.

I was once alive when I had no connection with the law, but when the command came, sin revived, and then I died;

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am made of flesh that is frail, sold into slavery to sin.

Indeed, I do not understand what I do, for I do not practice what I want to do, but I am always doing what I hate.

But if I am always doing what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is right.

Now really it is not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me.

For I know that nothing good has its home in me; that is, in my lower self; I have the will but not the power to do what is right.

Indeed, I do not do the good things that I want to do, but I do practice the evil things that I do not want to do.

But if I do the things that I do not want to do, it is really not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me.

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.

Thank God! It has been done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my higher nature I am a slave to the law of God, but in my lower nature, to the law of sin.

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 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.

But you are not living on the plane of the lower nature, but on the spiritual plane, if the Spirit of God has His home within you. Unless a man has the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

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.

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 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."

Not only that but this too, we ourselves who enjoy the Spirit as a foretaste of the future, even we ourselves, keep up our inner groanings while we wait to enter upon our adoption as God's sons at the redemption of our bodies.

But a hope that is seen is not real hope, for who hopes for what he actually sees? But if we hope for something we do not see, we keep on patiently waiting for it.

In the same way the Spirit, too, is helping us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself pleads for us with unspeakable yearnings,

Since He did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not with Him graciously give us everything else?

But it is not that God's word has failed. For not everybody that is descended from Israel really belongs to Israel,

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.

For even before the twin sons were born, and though they had done nothing either good or bad, that God's purpose in accordance with His choice might continue to stand, conditioned not on men's actions but on God's calling them,

As the Scripture says, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated."

So one's destiny does not depend on his own willing or strenuous actions but on God's having mercy on him.

even us whom He has called, not only from among the Jews but from among the heathen too?

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,

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."

For I can testify that they are zealous for God, but they are not intelligently so.

But here is what the faith-way to right standing says, "Do not say to yourself, 'Who will go up to heaven?'" that is, to bring Christ down;

But what does it say? "God's message is close to you, on your very lips and in your heart"; that is, the message about faith which we preach.

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.

But how can people call upon One in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in One about whom they have not heard? And how can people hear without someone to preach to them?

But may I ask, They had no chance to hear, did they? Yes, indeed: "All over the earth their voices have gone, to the ends of the world their words."

But again I ask, Israel did not understand, did they? For in the first place Moses says: "I will make you jealous of a nation that is no nation; I will provoke you to anger at a senseless nation."

But of Israel he said: "All day long I have held out my hands to a people that is disobedient and obstinate."

But how did God reply to him? "I have reserved for myself seven thousand men who have never bent their knees to Baal."

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.

What are we then to conclude? Israel has failed to obtain what it is still in search for, but His chosen ones have obtained it. The rest have become insensible to it,

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.

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.

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,

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.

Now through the unmerited favor God has shown me I would say to every one of you not to estimate himself above his real value, but to make a sober rating of himself, in accordance with the degree of faith which God has apportioned to him.

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

Keep on thinking in harmony with one another. Stop being high-minded but keep on associating with lowly people. Stop being conceited.

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.

For civil authorities are not a terror to the man who does right, but they are to the man who does wrong. Do you want to have no dread of the civil authorities? Then practice doing right and you will be commended for it.

For the civil authorities are God's servants to do you good. But if you practice doing wrong, you should dread them, for they do not wield the sword for nothing. Indeed, they are God's servants to inflict punishment upon people who do wrong.

Therefore, you must obey them, not only for the sake of escaping punishment, but also for conscience' sake;

Make it your practice to receive into full Christian fellowship people who are overscrupulous, but not to criticize their views.

One man believes that he can eat anything; another who is overscrupulous eats nothing but vegetables.

For the kingdom of God does not consist in what we eat and drink, but in doing right, in peace and joy through the Holy Spirit;