through whom we have received God's favor and been commissioned in his name to urge obedience and faith upon all the heathen,

including you who have been called to belong to Jesus Christ??7 to all those in Rome whom God loves, who are called to be his people; God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ bless you and give you peace.

I want you to understand, brothers, that I have often intended to come to see you (though thus far I have been prevented) in order to produce some results among you, as well as among the rest of the heathen.

In it God's way of uprightness is disclosed through faith and for faith, just as the Scripture says, "The upright will have life because of his faith."

Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible nature??is eternal power and divine character??ave been clearly perceptible through what he has made. So they have no excuse,

for, though they knew God, they have not honored him as God or given thanks to him, but they have indulged in futile speculations, until their stupid minds have become dark.

They called themselves wise, but they have turned into fools,

and for the splendor of the immortal God they have substituted images in the form of mortal man, birds, animals, and reptiles.

That is why God has abandoned them to degrading passions. Their women have exchanged their natural function for one that is unnatural,

and men too in the same way have disregarded the natural function of women and been consumed with passion for one another, men for men, acting indecently, and experiencing in their own persons the inevitable penalty of what they have done.

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, if you pose as a judge, for when you pass judgment on someone else, you are condemning yourself, for you, who sit in judgment, do the very same things yourself.

Those who by persistently doing right strive for glory, honor, and immortality will have eternal life,

When heathen who have no Law instinctively obey what the Law demands, even though they have no law they are a law to themselves,

on that Day when, as the good news I preach teaches, God through Christ Jesus judges what men have kept secret,

train the foolish, teach the young, since you have knowledge and truth formulated in the Law??21 why, then, will you teach others and refuse to teach yourself? Will you preach against stealing, and yet steal yourself?

And if, although they are physically uncircumcised, they obey the Law, they will condemn you, who break the Law, although you have it in writing, and are circumcised.

What if some of them have shown a lack of faith? Can their lack of it nullify the faithfulness of God?

What does this mean? Are we Jews at a disadvantage? Not at all. We have already charged Jews and Greeks all alike with being under the control of sin.

All have turned away, they are one and all worthless, No one does right, not a single one!

It is God's way of uprightness and comes through having faith in Jesus Christ, and it is for all who have faith, without distinction.

For God showed him publicly dying as a sacrifice of reconciliation to be taken advantage of through faith. This was to vindicate his own justice (for in his forbearance, God passed over men's former sins)??26 to vindicate his justice at the present time, and show that he is upright himself, and that he makes those who have faith in Jesus upright also.

"Happy are they whose violations of the Law have been forgiven, whose sins are covered up!

and he was afterward given the mark of circumcision as the stamp of God's acknowledgment of the uprightness based on faith that was his before he was circumcised, so that he should be the forefather of all who, without being circumcised, have faith and so are credited with uprightness,

as the Scripture says, "I have made you the father of many nations." The promise is guaranteed in the very sight of God in whom he had faith, who can bring the dead to life and call into being what does not exist.

but also on ours, for it is to be credited also to us who have faith in him who raised from the dead our Lord Jesus,

So as we have been made upright by faith, let us live in peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

by whom we have been introduced through faith to the favor of God that we now enjoy, and let us glory in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

So if we have already been made upright by his death, it is far more certain that through him we shall be saved from God's anger!

But there is no comparison between God's gift and that offense. For if one man's offense made the mass of mankind die, God's mercy and his gift given through the favor of the one man Jesus Christ have far more powerfully affected mankind.

Certainly not! When we have died to sin, how can we live in it any longer?

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into union with Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?

Through baptism we have been buried with him in death, so that just as he was raised from the dead through the Father's glory, we too may live a new life.

For if we have grown into union with him by undergoing a death like his, of course we shall do so by being raised to life like him,

If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him,

But, thank God! though you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from your hearts to the standard of teaching that you received,

and so you have been freed from sin, and made slaves of uprightness.

But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you get is consecration, and the final result is eternal life.

So you, in turn, my brothers, in the body of Christ have become dead as far as the Law is concerned, so that you may belong to another husband, who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God.

But now the Law no longer applies to us; we have died to what once controlled us, so that we can now serve in the new Spirit, not under the old letter.

Then what shall we conclude? That the Law is sin? Certainly not! Yet, if it had not been for the Law, I should never have learned what sin was; I should not have known what it was to covet if the Law had not said, "You must not covet."

and the command that should have meant life in my case proved to mean death.

But if Christ is in your hearts, though your bodies are dead in consequence of sin, your spirits have life in consequence of uprightness.

that creation itself would be set free from its bondage to decay, and have the glorious freedom of the children of God.

More than that, we ourselves, though we have in the Spirit a foretaste of the future, groan to ourselves as we wait to be declared God's sons, through the redemption of our bodies.

For this is what the promise said: "When I come back at this time next year, Sarah will have a son."

He said to Moses, "I will have mercy on the man on whom I choose to have mercy, and take pity on the man on whom I choose to take pity."

The Scripture says to Pharaoh, "I have raised you to your position for the very purpose of displaying my power in dealing with you, and making my name known all over the world."

As Isaiah foretold, "If the Lord of Hosts had not left us children, We would have been like Sodom, and have resembled Gomorrah!"

There is no distinction between Jew and Greek for they all have the same Lord, and he is generous to all who call upon him.

But how are they to call upon him if they have not believed in him? And how are they to believe him if they have never heard him? And how are they to hear unless someone preaches to them?

It is true, they have not all accepted the good news, for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what we have told?"

But I ask, had they no opportunity to hear it? On the contrary, "Their voices have gone all over the earth, And their words to the ends of the world."

Then Isaiah broke out boldly and said, "I have been found by men who were not looking for me, I have shown myself to men who were not asking what my will was."

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

"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, I am the only one left and they are trying to take my life."

But what is God's reply? "I have left myself seven thousand men who have never knelt to Baal!"

But if it is by his mercy, it is not for anything they have done. Otherwise, his mercy would not be mercy at all.

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you who were only a wild olive shoot have been grafted in, in place of them, and made to share the richness of the olive's root,

Observe then the goodness and the severity of God??everity to those who have fallen, but goodness to you, provided you abide by his goodness, for otherwise, you in your turn will be pruned away.

For to keep you from thinking too well of yourselves, brothers, I do not want you to miss this secret, that only partial insensibility has come upon Israel, to last until all the heathen have come in,

For just as you once disobeyed God, but now have had mercy shown you because they disobeyed,

For God has made all men prisoners of disobedience so as to have mercy upon them all.

"Or who has advanced anything to him, for which he will have to be repaid?"

For just as there are many parts united in our human bodies, and the parts do not all have the same function,

We have gifts that differ with the favor that God has shown us, whether it is that of preaching, differing with the measure of our faith,

Everyone must obey the authorities that are over him, for no authority can exist without the permission of God; the existing authorities have been established by him,

The man who does right has nothing to fear from the magistrates, as the wrongdoer has. If you want to have no fear of the authorities, do right, and they will commend you for it,

What business have you to criticize your brother? What business have you to look down upon your brother? We shall all have to stand before God for judgment.

The thing you have a right to do must not become a cause of reproach.

For your part, you must keep the faith you have to yourself, as between God and you. He is a happy man who has no fault to find with himself in following the course that he approves,

Christ did not please himself, but as the Scripture says, "The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me."

May God, the source of hope, fill you with perfect happiness and peace in your faith, so that you may have overflowing hope through the power of the holy Spirit.

But, just to refresh your memories, I have written you pretty boldly on some points, because of the favor God has shown me

So as a follower of Christ Jesus I have reason to be proud of my work for God.

by the force of signs and marvels, and by the power of the holy Spirit, with the result that I have completed the preaching of the good news of Christ all the way from Jerusalem around to Illyricum.

As the Scripture says, "They who have never been told of him will see, And they who have never heard will understand!"

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

But now there is no more work for me in this part of the world, and as I have had a great desire for many years to come to see you,

when I go to Spain I hope to see you on my way there, and to have you see me off on my journey, after I have enjoyed being with you for a while.

For Macedonia and Greece have determined to make a contribution for the poor among God's people in Jerusalem.

They determined to do it, and they really are indebted to them, for if the heathen have shared their spiritual blessings, they ought to do them a service in material ways.

So when I have finished this matter, and seen this contribution safely into their possession, I will start for Spain, and come to you on the way,