Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, called as an apostle, set apart to declare God's good news,

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

and to ask that somehow by God's will I may some day at last succeed in reaching you.

For I long to see you, to convey to you some spiritual gift that will strengthen you;

in other words, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by one another's faith.

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.

So, for my part, I am eager to preach the good news to you at Rome also.

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

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."

For God's anger is breaking forth from heaven against all the impiety and wickedness of the men who in their wickedness are suppressing the truth.

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,

So God abandoned them, with their heart's cravings, to impurity, and let them degrade their own bodies.

They know God's decree that those who act in this way deserve to die, yet they not only do it, but applaud any who do.

We know that God's judgment rightfully falls upon those who do such things as these.

Do you think so lightly of his wealth of kindness, forbearance, and patience, and fail to see that God's kindness ought to induce you to repent?

So if people who are uncircumcised observe the requirements of the Law, will they not be treated as though they were circumcised?

By no means! God must prove true, though every man be false; as the Scripture says, "That you may be shown to be upright in what you say, And win your case when you go into court."

But if our wrongdoing brings out the uprightness of God, what are we to say? Is it wrong in God (I am putting it in ordinary human terms) to inflict punishment?

But, you say, if a falsehood of mine has brought great honor to God by bringing out his truthfulness, why am I tried for being a sinner?

And why not say, as people abuse us for saying and charge us with saying, "Let us do evil that good may come out of it"? Such people will be condemned as they deserve!

Now we know that everything the Law says is addressed to those under its authority, so that every mouth may be shut, and the whole world be made accountable to God.

But now God's way of uprightness has been disclosed without any reference to law, though the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it.

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.

Then what are we to say about our ancestor Abraham?

for what does the Scripture say? "Abraham had faith in God, and it was credited to him as uprightness."

So David himself says of the happiness of those to whom God credits uprightness without any reference to their actions,

Does this happiness apply to those who are circumcised, or to those who are uncircumcised as well? What we say is, Abraham's faith was credited to him as uprightness.

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,

and the forefather of those circumcised persons who not only share his circumcision but follow our forefather Abraham's example in the faith he had before he was circumcised.

For the Law only brings down God's wrath; where there is no law, there is no violation of it.

That is why it all turns upon faith; it is to make it a matter of God's favor, so that the promise may hold good for all Abraham's descendants, not only those who are adherents of the Law, but also those who share the faith of Abraham. For he is the father of all of us;

Abraham, hoping against hope, had faith, and so became the father of many nations, in fulfilment of the Scripture, "So countless shall your descendants be."

He did not incredulously question God's promise, but his faith gave him power and he praised God

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

and hope will not disappoint us. For, through the holy Spirit that has been given us, God's love has flooded our hearts.

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!

If, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, it is far more certain that now that we are reconciled we shall be saved through sharing in his life!

It is just like the way in which through one man sin came into the world, and death followed sin, and so death spread to all men, because all men sinned.

Still death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned as Adam had, in the face of an express command. So Adam foreshadowed the one who was to come.

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.

Nor is there any comparison between the gift and the effects of that one man's sin. That sentence arose from the act of one man, and was for condemnation; but God's gift arose out of many offenses and results in acquittal.

For if that one man's offense made death reign through that one man, all the more will those who receive God's overflowing mercy and his gift of uprightness live and reign through the one individual Jesus Christ.

So as one offense meant condemnation for all men, just so one righteous act means acquittal and life for all men.

For just as that one man's disobedience made the mass of mankind sinners, so this one's obedience will make the mass of them upright.

Then law slipped in, and multiplied the offense. But greatly as sin multiplied, God's mercy has far surpassed it,

so that just as sin had reigned through death, mercy might reign through uprightness and bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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,

for we know that our old self was crucified with him, to do away with our sinful body, so that we might not be enslaved to sin any longer,

So you also must think of yourselves as dead to sin but alive to God, through union with Christ Jesus.

So sin must not reign over your mortal bodies, and make you obey their cravings,

Do you not know that when you submit to being someone's slaves, and obeying him, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey, whether your slavery is to sin, and leads to death, or is to obedience, and leads to uprightness?

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

So if she marries another man while her husband is alive, she is called an adulteress, but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and can marry someone else without being an adulteress.

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.

So the Law itself is holy, and each command is holy, just, and good.

Did what was good, then, prove the death of me? Certainly not! It was sin that did so, so that it might be recognized as sin, because even through something that was good it effected my death, so that through the command it might appear how immeasurably sinful sin was.

but all through my body I see another principle in conflict with the law of my reason, which makes me a prisoner to that law of sin that runs through my body.

Thank God! it is done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So mentally I am a slave to God's law, but physically to the law of sin.

So there is no condemnation any more for those who are in union with Christ Jesus.

so that the requirement of the Law might be fully met in our case, since we live not on the physical but on the spiritual plane.

For to be physically minded means hostility to God, for it refuses to obey God's law, indeed it cannot obey it.

But you are not physical but spiritual, if God's Spirit has really taken possession of you; for unless a man has Christ's spirit, he does not belong to Christ.

So, brothers, we are under obligations, but not to the physical nature, to live under its control,

for if you live under the control of the physical you will die, but if, by means of the Spirit, you put the body's doings to death, you will live.

For all who are guided by God's Spirit are God's sons.

The Spirit itself testifies with our spirits that we are God's children,

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.

But when we hope for something that we do not see, we wait persistently for it.

and he who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit means, for it pleads for God's people in accordance with his will.

For those whom he had marked out from the first he predestined to be made like his Son, so that he should be the eldest of many brothers;

who can condemn them? Christ Jesus who died, or rather who was raised from the dead, is at God's right hand, and actually pleads for us.

Who can separate us from Christ's love? Can trouble or misfortune or persecution or hunger or destitution or danger or the sword?

I am telling the truth as a Christian, it is no falsehood, for my conscience under the holy Spirit's influence bears me witness in it,

when I say that I am greatly pained and my heart is constantly distressed,

For they are Israelites, and to them belong the rights of sonship, God's glorious presence, the divine agreements and legislation, the Temple service, the promises,

Not that God's message has failed. For not everybody who is descended from Israel really belongs to Israel,

That is to say, it is not his physical descendants who are children of God, but his descendants born in fulfilment of the promise who are considered his true posterity.

For before the children were born or had done anything either good or bad, in order to carry out God's purpose of selection, which depends not on what men do but on his calling them,

she was told, "The elder will be the younger's slave."

So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on the mercy of God.

So he has mercy on anyone he pleases, and hardens the heart of anyone he pleases.

On the contrary, who are you, my friend, to answer back to God? Can something a man shapes say to the man who shaped it, "Why did you make me like this?"

so as to show all the wealth of his glory in dealing with the objects of his mercy, whom he has prepared from the beginning to share his glory,

And Isaiah cries out about Israel, "Although the sons of Israel are as numerous as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,

as the Scripture says, "See, I will put a stone on Zion to make people stumble, and a rock to trip over, But no one who has faith in it will be disappointed."

For in their ignorance of God's way of uprightness and in the attempt to set up one of their own, they refused to conform to God's way of uprightness.

For Christ marks the termination of law, so that now anyone who has faith may attain uprightness.

But this is what the uprightness that springs from faith says: "Do not say to yourself, 'Who will go up to heaven?' " that is, to bring Christ down;

No! This is what it says: "God's message is close to you, on your lips and in your mind"??hat is, the message about faith that we preach.

So faith comes from hearing what is told, and that hearing comes through the message about Christ.

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

So too at the present time there is a remnant selected by God's mercy.

The rest became callous; as the Scripture says, "God has thrown them into a state of spiritual insensibility, with eyes that cannot see and cars that cannot hear, that has lasted down to this day."

Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see; Make their backs bend forever under their burden!"

I ask then, has their stumbling led to their absolute ruin? By no means. Through their false step salvation has gone to the heathen, so as to make the Israelites jealous.

But if their false step has so enriched the world, and their defeat has so enriched the heathen, how much more good the addition of their full number will do!

But it is to you who are of the heathen that I am speaking. So far then as I am an apostle to the heathen, I make the most of my ministry,