For I am not ashamed of the good news, for it is God's power for the salvation of everyone who trusts, of the Jew first and then of the Greek.

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;

Although they know full well God's sentence that those who practice such things deserve to die, yet they not only practice them but even applaud others who do them.

Do you think so little of the riches of God's kindness, forbearance, and patience, not conscious that His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

For merely hearing the law read does not make men upright with God, but men who practice the law will be recognized as upright.

you who teach others, do you not teach yourself too? You who preach that men should not steal, do you steal yourself?

So if the uncircumcised heathen man observes the just demands of the law, will he not be counted as though he were a Jew?

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?

For the real Jew is not the man who is a Jew on the outside, and real circumcision is not outward physical circumcision.

The real Jew is the man who is a Jew on the inside, and real circumcision is heart-circumcision, a spiritual, not a literal, affair. This man's praise originates, not with men, but with God.

Not at all. Let God prove true, though every man be false! As the Scripture says, "That you may prove yourself upright in words you speak, and win your case when you go into court."

Not at all! If that were so, how could He judge the world?

Why should we not say, as people abusively say of us, and charge us with actually saying, "Let us do evil that good may come from it"? Their condemnation is just.

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,

as the Scriptures say: "Not a single human creature is upright,

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

They do not know the way of peace.

Or is He the God of Jews alone? Is He not the God of heathen peoples too? Of course, He is the God of heathen peoples too,

Do we then through faith make null and void the law? Not at all; instead, we confirm it.

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.

Now when a workman gets his pay, it is not considered from the point of view of a favor but of an obligation;

Happy the man whose sin the Lord does not charge against him!"

Under what circumstances was it credited to him as right standing? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? Not after but before he was circumcised.

and the forefather of those Jews who not only belong to the circumcision but also follow in the footsteps of our forefather Abraham in the faith he had before he was circumcised.

For the promise made to Abraham and his descendants, that he should own the world, was not conditioned on the law, but on the right standing he had with God through faith.

So it is conditioned on faith, that it might be in accordance with God's unmerited favor, so that the promise might be in force for all the descendants of Abraham, not only for those who belong to the law party but also for those who belong to the faith group of Abraham. He is the father of us all,

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.

It was not for his sake alone that it was written, "It was credited to him";

And not only that, but this too: let us continue exulting in our sufferings, for we know that suffering produces endurance,

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.

Certainly sin was in the world before the law was given, but it is not charged to men's account where there is no law.

And yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the way Adam had, against a positive command. For Adam was a figure of Him who was to come.

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.

And the gift is not fit all to be compared with the results of that one man's sin. For that sentence resulted from the offense of one man, and it meant condemnation, but the free gift resulted from the offenses of many, and it meant right standing.

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?

for we know that our former self was crucified with Him, to make our body that is liable to sin inactive, so that we might not a moment longer continue to be slaves to sin.

Accordingly, sin must not continue to reign over your mortal bodies, so as to make you continue to obey their evil desires,

For sin must not any longer exert its mastery over you, for now you are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor.

What are we to conclude? Are we to keep on sinning, because we are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor? Never!

Do you not know that when you habitually offer yourselves to anyone for obedience to him, you are slaves to that one whom you are in the habit of obeying, whether it is the slavery to sin whose end is death or to obedience whose end is right-doing?

Do you not know, brothers -- for I speak to those who are acquainted with the law -- that the law can press its claim over a man only so long as he lives?

So if she marries another man while her husband is living, she is called an adulteress, but if he dies, she is free from that marriage bond, so that she will not be an adulteress though later married to another man.

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."

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.

Indeed, I do not understand what I do, for I do not practice what I want to do, but I am always doing what I hate.

But if I am always doing what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is right.

Now really it is not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me.

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.

Indeed, I do not do the good things that I want to do, but I do practice the evil things that I do not want to do.

But if I do the things that I do not want to do, it is really not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me.

For though the law could not do it, because it was made helpless through our lower nature, yet God, by sending His own Son in a body similar to that of our lower nature, and as a sacrifice for sin, passed sentence upon sin through His body,

so that the requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live by the standard set by our lower nature, but by the standard set by the Spirit.

Because one's thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means enmity to God, for it does not subject itself to God's law, nor indeed can it.

But you are not living on the plane of the lower nature, but on the spiritual plane, if the Spirit of God has His home within you. Unless a man has the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

So, brothers, we are under obligations, but not to our lower nature to live by the standard set by it;

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 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

Not only that but this too, we ourselves who enjoy the Spirit as a foretaste of the future, even we ourselves, keep up our inner groanings while we wait to enter upon our adoption as God's sons at the redemption of our bodies.

But a hope that is seen is not real hope, for who hopes for what he actually sees? But if we hope for something we do not see, we keep on patiently waiting for it.

In the same way the Spirit, too, is helping us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself pleads for us with unspeakable yearnings,

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?

But it is not that God's word has failed. For not everybody that is descended from Israel really belongs to Israel,

That is, it is not Abraham's natural descendants who are God's children, but those who are made children by the promise are counted his true descendants.

Not only that but this too: There was Rebecca who was impregnated by our forefather Isaac.

For even before the twin sons were born, and though they had done nothing either good or bad, that God's purpose in accordance with His choice might continue to stand, conditioned not on men's actions but on God's calling them,

What are we then to conclude? It is not that there is injustice in God, is it? Of course not!

So one's destiny does not depend on his own willing or strenuous actions but on God's having mercy on him.

Has not the potter the right with his clay to make of the same lump one vessel for ornamental purposes, another for degrading service?

even us whom He has called, not only from among the Jews but from among the heathen too?

Just as He says in Hosea: "I will call a people that was not mine, my people, and her who was not beloved, my beloved,

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;

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,

For I can testify that they are zealous for God, but they are not intelligently so.

For they were ignorant of God's way of right standing and were trying to set up one of their own, and so would not surrender to God's way of right standing.

But here is what the faith-way to right standing says, "Do not say to yourself, 'Who will go up to heaven?'" that is, to bring Christ down;

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 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."

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."

I say then, God has not disowned His people, has He? Of course not! Why, I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

No, God has not disowned His people, on whom He set His heart beforehand. Do you know what the Scripture says in Elijah's case, how he pleaded with God against Israel?

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.

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.

you must not be boasting against the natural branches. And if you do, just consider, you do not support the root, but the root supports you.

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

And they too, if they do not continue to live by their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is amply able to graft them in.

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,

Now through the unmerited favor God has shown me I would say to every one of you not to estimate himself above his real value, but to make a sober rating of himself, in accordance with the degree of faith which God has apportioned to him.

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

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 civil authorities are God's servants to do you good. But if you practice doing wrong, you should dread them, for they do not wield the sword for nothing. Indeed, they are God's servants to inflict punishment upon people who do wrong.

Therefore, you must obey them, not only for the sake of escaping punishment, but also for conscience' sake;

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."

The night has almost passed; the day is at hand. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness, and put on the weapons of light.

Let us live becomingly for people who are in the light of day, not in carousing and drunkenness, nor in sexual immorality and licentiousness, nor in quarreling and jealousy.

Make it your practice to receive into full Christian fellowship people who are overscrupulous, but not to criticize their views.