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.

And so, as they did not approve of fully recognizing God any longer, God gave them up to minds that He did not approve, to practices that were improper;

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.

as the Scripture says, "I have made you the father of many nations." That is, the promise is in force in the sight of God in whom he put his faith, the God who can bring the dead to life and can call to Himself the things that do not exist as though they did.

What benefit did you then derive from doing the things of which you are now ashamed? None, for they end in death.

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.

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

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?

On the contrary, friend, who are you anyway that you would answer back to God? Can the clay that is molded ask the man who molds it, "Why did you make me like this?"

As Isaiah again has foretold, "Unless the Lord of hosts had left us some descendants, we would have fared as Sodom did and would have been like Gomorrah."

while Israel, though ever in pursuit of a law that would bring right standing, did not attain to it.

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,

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

I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall in utter ruin, did they? Of course not! On the contrary, because of their stumbling, salvation has come to heathen peoples, to make the Israelites jealous.

for if God did not spare the natural branches, certainly He will not spare you.

But the man who has misgivings about eating, if he then eats, has already condemned himself by so doing, because he did not follow his faith, and any action that does not follow one's faith is a sin.

Christ certainly did not please Himself; instead, as the Scripture says, "The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen upon me."

Remember me to Andronicus and Junias, my fellow-country-men, who also served in prison with me; they are held in high esteem among the apostles, and became Christians before I did.