but as regards the holiness of His Spirit was decisively proved by His Resurrection to be the Son of God--I mean concerning Jesus Christ our Lord,

through whom we have received grace and Apostleship in His service in order to win men to obedience to the faith, among all Gentile peoples,

in other words that while I am among you we may be mutually encouraged by one another's faith, yours and mine.

For in the Good News a righteousness which comes from God is being revealed, depending on faith and tending to produce faith; as the Scripture has it, "The righteous man shall live by faith."

For God's anger is being revealed from Heaven against all impiety and against the iniquity of men who through iniquity suppress the truth. God is angry:

For, from the very creation of the world, His invisible perfections--namely His eternal power and divine nature--have been rendered intelligible and clearly visible by His works, so that these men are without excuse.

and, instead of worshipping the imperishable God, they worshipped images resembling perishable man or resembling birds or beasts or reptiles.

This then is the reason why God gave them up to vile passions. For not only did the women among them exchange the natural use of their bodies for one which is contrary to nature, but the men also,

in just the same way--neglecting that for which nature intends women--burned with passion towards one another, men practising shameful vice with men, and receiving in their own selves the reward which necessarily followed their misconduct.

You are therefore without excuse, O man, whoever you are who sit in judgement upon others. For when you pass judgement on your fellow man, you condemn yourself; for you who sit in judgement upon others are guilty of the same misdeeds;

To each man He will make an award corresponding to his actions;

coming upon the soul of every man and woman who deliberately does wrong--upon the Jew first, and then upon the Gentile;

on the day when God will judge the secrets of men's lives by Jesus Christ, as declared in the Good News as I have taught it.

and know the supreme will, and can test things that differ--being a man who receives instruction from the Law--

you then who teach your fellow man, do you refuse to teach yourself? You who cry out against stealing, are you yourself a thief?

In the same way if an uncircumcised man pays attention to the just requirements of the Law, shall not his lack of circumcision be overlooked, and,

For the true Jew is not the man who is simply a Jew outwardly, and true circumcision is not that which is outward and bodily.

But the true Jew is one inwardly, and true circumcision is heart-circumcision--not literal, but spiritual; and such people receive praise not from men, but from God.

No, indeed; let us hold God to be true, though every man should prove to be false. As it stands written, "That Thou mayest be shown to be just in the sentence Thou pronouncest, and gain Thy cause when Thou contendest."

If, for instance, a falsehood of mine has made God's truthfulness more conspicuous, redounding to His glory, why am I judged all the same as a sinner?

Thus it stands written, "There is not one righteous man.

For on the ground of obedience to Law no man living will be declared righteous before Him. Law simply brings a sure knowledge of sin.

For we maintain that it is as the result of faith that a man is held to be righteous, apart from actions done in obedience to Law.

But in the case of a man who works, pay is not reckoned a favour but a debt;

whereas in the case of a man who pleads no actions of his own, but simply believes in Him who declares the ungodly free from guilt, his faith is placed to his credit as righteousness.

In this way David also tells of the blessedness of the man to whose credit God places righteousness, apart from his actions.

Blessed is the man of whose sin the Lord will not take account."

Why, it is scarcely conceivable that any one would die for a simply just man, although for a good and lovable man perhaps some one, here and there, will have the courage even to lay down his life.

What follows? This comparison. Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so death passed to all mankind in turn, in that all sinned.

But God's free gift immeasurably outweighs the transgression. For if through the transgression of the one individual the mass of mankind have died, infinitely greater is the generosity with which God's grace, and the gift given in His grace which found expression in the one man Jesus Christ, have been bestowed on the mass of mankind.

and no longer lend your faculties as unrighteous weapons for Sin to use. On the contrary surrender your very selves to God as living men who have risen from the dead, and surrender your several faculties to God, to be used as weapons to maintain the right.

This accounts for the fact that if during her husband's life she lives with another man, she will be stigmatized as an adulteress; but that if her husband is dead she is no longer under the old prohibition, and even though she marries again, she is not an adulteress.

(Unhappy man that I am! who will rescue me from this death-burdened body?

For if men are controlled by their earthly natures, they give their minds to earthly things. If they are controlled by their spiritual natures, they give their minds to spiritual things.

You, however, are not devoted to earthly, but to spiritual things, if the Spirit of God is really dwelling in you; whereas if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, such a one does not belong to Him.

It is *in hope* that we have been saved. But an object of hope is such no longer when it is present to view; for when a man has a thing before his eyes, how can he be said to hope for it?

Now we know that for those who love God all things are working together for good--for those, I mean, whom with deliberate purpose He has called.

I am telling you the truth as a Christian man--it is no falsehood, for my conscience enlightened, as it is, by the Holy Spirit adds its testimony to mine--

And from this we learn that everything is dependent not on man's will or endeavour, but upon God who has mercy. For the Scripture said to Pharaoh,

Nay, but who are you, a mere man, that you should cavil against GOD? Shall the thing moulded say to him who moulded it, "Why have you made me thus?"

And in the place where it was said to them, 'No people of Mine are you,' there shall they be called sons of the everliving God."

For with the heart men believe and obtain righteousness, and with the mouth they make confession and obtain salvation.

And how are men to preach unless they have been sent to do so? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good!"

But what did God say to him in reply? "I have reserved for Myself 7,000 men who have never bent the knee to Baal."

For there is a truth, brethren, not revealed hitherto, of which I do not wish to leave you in ignorance, for fear you should attribute superior wisdom to yourselves--the truth, I mean, that partial blindness has fallen upon Israel until the great mass of the Gentiles have come in;

Pay back to no man evil for evil. Take thought for what is right and seemly in every one's esteem.

Therefore the man who rebels against his ruler is resisting God's will; and those who thus resist will bring punishment upon themselves.

Pay promptly to all men what is due to them: taxes to those to whom taxes are due, toll to those to whom toll is due, respect to those to whom respect is due, honour to those to whom honour is due.

Owe nothing to any one except mutual love; for he who loves his fellow man has satisfied the demands of Law.

For the precepts, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," "Thou shalt do no murder," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not covet," and all other precepts, are summed up in this one command, "Thou shalt love thy fellow man as much as thou lovest thyself."

Love avoids doing any wrong to one's fellow man, and is therefore complete obedience to Law.

I now pass to another subject. Receive as a friend a man whose faith is weak, but not for the purpose of deciding mere matters of opinion.

One man's faith allows him to eat anything, while a man of weaker faith eats nothing but vegetables.

One man esteems one day more highly than another; another esteems all days alike. Let every one be thoroughly convinced in his own mind.

If your brother is pained by the food you are eating, your conduct is no longer controlled by love. Take care lest, by the food you eat, you lead to ruin a man for whom Christ died.

and whoever in this way devotedly serves Christ, God takes pleasure in him, and men highly commend him.

Do not for food's sake be throwing down God's work. All food is pure; but a man is in the wrong if his food is a snare to others.

As for you and your faith, keep your faith to yourself in the presence of God. The man is to be congratulated who does not pronounce judgement on himself in what his actions sanction.

For I will not presume to mention any of the results that Christ has brought about by other agency than mine in securing the obedience of the Gentiles by word or deed,

making it my ambition, however, not to tell the Good News where Christ's name was already known, for fear I should be building on another man's foundation.

friends who have endangered their own lives for mine. I am grateful to them, and not I alone, but all the Gentile Churches also.

For men of that stamp are not bondservants of Christ our Lord, but are slaves to their own appetites; and by their plausible words and their flattery they utterly deceive the minds of the simple.