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,

Furthermore, I want you to know, brothers, that I have often planned to come to see you (though until now I have been prevented), in order that I may gather some fruit among you too, as I have among the rest of the heathen.

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,

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 have transformed the splendor of the immortal God into images in the form of mortal man, birds, beasts, and reptiles.

This is why God has given them up to degrading passions. For their females have exchanged their natural function for one that is unnatural,

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.

Therefore, you have no excuse, whoever you are, who pose as a judge of others, for when you pass judgment on another, you condemn yourself, for you who pose as a judge are practicing the very same sins yourself.

Indeed, when heathen people who have no law instinctively do what the law demands, although they have no law, they are a law to themselves,

on the day when God through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the good news I preach, will judge the secrets people have kept.

a tutor of the foolish, a teacher of the young, since you have a knowledge of the truth as formulated in the law --

And shall not the heathen man who is physically uncircumcised, and yet observes the law, condemn you who have the letter of the law and are physically circumcised, and yet break the law?

What then, if some of them have proved unfaithful? Can their unfaithfulness make null and void God's faithfulness?

What is our conclusion then? Is it that we Jews are better than they? Not at all! For we have already charged that Jews and Greeks alike are all under the sway of sin,

They all have turned aside, all have become corrupt; No one does good, not even one!

Their throats are just like open graves, with their tongues they have spoken treachery; the poison of asps is under their lips.

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

"Happy are they whose transgressions have been forgiven, whose sins were covered up;

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;

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.

Since we have been given right standing with God through faith, then let us continue enjoying peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

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.

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.

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.

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.

Not at all! Since we have ended our relation to sin, how can we live in it any longer?

Or, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into union with Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

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,

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,

and since you have been freed from sin, you have become the slaves of right-doing.

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.

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.

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.

What are we then to conclude? Is the law sin? Of course not! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have learned what sin was, for I should not have known what an evil desire was, if the law had not said, "You must not have an evil desire."

and so, in my case, the command which should have meant life turned out to mean death.

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.

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 have full assurance that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor the present nor the future

that I have deep grief and constant anguish in my heart;

For this is the language of the promise, "About this time next year I will come back, and Sarah will have a son."

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

For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on any man that I choose to have mercy on, and take pity on any man that I choose to take pity on."

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "I have raised you to your position for this very purpose of displaying my power in dealing with you, of announcing my name all over the earth."

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."

What are we then to conclude? That heathen peoples who were not in search for right standing with God have obtained it, and that a right standing conditioned on faith;

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 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?

However, they have not all given heed to the good news, for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has put faith in what we told?"

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."

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

"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone have been left, and they are trying to kill me."

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,

If some of the branches have been broken off, and yet you, although you were wild olive suckers, have been grafted in among the native branches, and been made to share the rich sap of the native olive's root,

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

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.

For to keep you from being self-conceited, brothers, I do not want to have a misunderstanding of this uncovered secret, that only temporary insensibility has come upon Israel until the full quota of the heathen peoples comes in,

For just as you once disobeyed God, but now have had mercy shown you because of their disobedience,

so they too are now disobedient because of the mercy shown you, that they too may now have mercy shown them.

For God has locked up all mankind in the prison of disobedience so as to have mercy on them all.

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

For just as we have many parts united in our physical bodies, and the parts do not all have the same function,

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;

Everybody must obey the civil authorities that are over him, for no authority exists except by God's permission; the existing authorities have been established by Him,

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 commandments, "You must not commit adultery; you must not murder; you must not steal; you must not have an evil desire," and any other commandment if there is any, are summed up in this command, "You must love your neighbor as you do yourself."

I know, and through my union with the Lord Jesus I have a clear conviction, that nothing is unclean in itself; that a thing is unclean only to the person who thinks it unclean.

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

And yet, to refresh your memories, I have written you rather freely on some details, because of the unmerited favor shown me by God

in making me a minister of Christ Jesus to the heathen peoples, to have me act as a sacrificing minister of the good news, in order that my offering of the heathen peoples to God may be acceptable, consecrated by the Holy Spirit.

So, as a Christian, I am proud of the things that I have done for God.

by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit. So I have completed the telling of the good news of Christ all the way from Jerusalem around to Illyricum.

but, as the Scripture says: "They will see who were never told of Him, and they will understand who have not heard."

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

But now, as there are no more places for me to occupy in this part of the world, and as I have for many years been longing to come to see you,

when I make my trip to Spain, I certainly hope to see you on my way there and to be helped forward by you, after I have enjoyed being with you awhile.

They certainly were delighted to do it, and they really are under obligation to them, for if the heathen peoples have shared in their spiritual blessings, they ought to serve them in material blessings.

So, after I have finished this matter and made sure of the results of this contribution for them, I shall come by you on my way to Spain.

so that, if it is God's will, I may come with a happy heart to see you and have a refreshing rest while with you.