Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God

and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

To all in Rome who are beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

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

For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers,

asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last find the way to come to you.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth,

for what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,

because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural.

And since they did not see fit to retain the knowledge of God, God gave them over to a base mind, to do what ought not to be done.

slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,

Though they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who do such things.

Do you think, O man, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do the same yourself, you will escape the judgment of God?

Or do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

But by your hardness and your impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

to those who by patience in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life;

but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.

For God shows no partiality.

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in the sight of God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

on that day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

But if you call yourself a Jew, and rely on the law and boast of your relation to God

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

For, as it is written, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."

The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a breaker of the law.

He is a Jew who is one inwardly; and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, and not by the written code. His praise is not from men but from God.

Much in every way! To begin with, they are entrusted with the oracles of God.

What if some did not have faith? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?

Certainly not! Let God be true, though every man a liar. As it is written: "That you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged."

But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.)

Certainly not! For then how could God judge the world?

But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?

Why not say as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say "Let us do evil that good may come"? Their condemnation is just.

there is no one who understands, no one who seeks for God.

All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."

"There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

But now the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it,

the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. For there is no difference,

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

whom God put forward as an atoning sacrifice by his blood, to be received through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over sins committed beforehand;

Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,

since there is one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through their faith.

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."

So also David describes the blessedness of the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

(as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations") in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls things that do not exist as though they did.

And he did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.

He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,

being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

through whom we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of the glory of God.

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Why, one will hardly die for a righteous manthough perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die.

But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved through him from the wrath of God.

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if by the one man's trespass many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So you also, consider yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness.

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,

But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is holiness and its end, eternal life.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit to God.

But now, by dying to what once held us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Certainly not! But it was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, so that through the commandment sin might become sinful beyond measure.

Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.

For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will to do what is good, but I cannot do it.

For I do not do the good I want to do; but the evil I do not want to do is what I do.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me.

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,

Thanks be to Godthrough Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

For what the law could not do, in that it was weakened through the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin: he condemned sin in the flesh,

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so;

and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he does not belong to him.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

and if children, then heirsheirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, in order that we may also be glorified with him.

For the creation waits with eager expectation for the revealing of the sons of God.

because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.

And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

Who is he who condemns? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who is also interceding for us.

nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

Of them are the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, forever blessed. Amen.

But it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel,