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.

For all that can be known of God is clearly before them; God has shown it to them.

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

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.

And do you suppose, when you sit in judgment upon those who do such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?

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?

crushing distress and anguish, every human soul of them that actually does what is wrong??he Jew first, and the Greek also;

for they show that what the Law demands is written on their hearts, and their consciences will testify for them, and with their thoughts they will either accuse or perhaps defend themselves,

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

and you are sure that you can guide the blind, enlighten people who are in the dark,

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."

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.

For no human being can be made upright in the sight of God by observing the Law. All that the Law can do is to make man conscious of sin.

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.

For we hold that a man is made upright by faith; the observance of the Law has nothing to do with it.

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,

For the promise made to Abraham and his descendants that the world should belong to him did not come to him or his descendants through the Law, but through the uprightness that resulted from his faith.

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;

His faith did not weaken, although he realized that his own body was worn out, for he was about a hundred years old, and that Sarah was past bearing children.

in the full assurance that God was able to do what he had promised.

That was why it was credited to him as uprightness.

It was not on his account alone that these words, "it was credited to him," were written,

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.

More than that, we ought to glory in our troubles, for we know that trouble produces endurance,

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

But God proves his love for us by the fact that Christ died for us when we were still sinners.

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!

More than that, we actually glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom we owe our reconciliation.

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.

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.

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

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 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,

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

for we know that Christ, once raised from the dead, will never die again; death has no more hold on him.

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?

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,

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 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.

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."

That command gave sin an opening, and it led me to all sorts of covetous ways, for sin is lifeless without law.

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

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.

We know that the Law is spiritual, but I am physical, sold into slavery to sin.

I do not understand what I am doing, for I do not do what I want to do; I do things that I hate.

But if I do what I do not want to do, I acknowledge that the Law is right.

In reality, it is not I that do these things; it is sin, which has possession of me.

For I know that nothing good resides in me, that is, in my physical self; I can will, but I cannot do what is right.

I do not do the good things that I want to do; I do the wrong things that I do not want to do.

But if I do the things that I do not want to do, it is not I that am acting, it is sin, which has possession of me.

I find the law to be that I who want to do right am dogged by what is wrong.

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.

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.

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has taken possession of you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give your mortal bodies life through his Spirit that has taken possession of you.

It is not a consciousness of servitude that has been imparted to you, to fill you with fear again, but the consciousness of adoption as sons, which makes us cry, "Abba!" that is, Father.

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

For I consider what we suffer now not to be compared with the glory that is to burst upon us.

For it was not the fault of creation that it was frustrated; it was by the will of him who condemned it to that, and in the hope

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

We know that all creation has been groaning in agony together until now.

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.

It was in this hope that we were saved. But a hope that can be seen is not a hope, for who hopes for what he sees?

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

We know that in everything God works with those who love him, whom he has called in accordance with his purpose, to bring about what is good.

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;

Will not he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, with that gift give us everything?

For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor their hierarchies nor the present nor the future

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

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.

And that is not all, for there was Rebecca too, when she was about to bear twin sons to our forefather Isaac.

What do we conclude? That God is guilty of injustice? By no means.

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,

Then what do we conclude? That heathen who were not striving for uprightness attained it, that is, an uprightness which was produced by faith;

while Israel, straining after a law that should bring uprightness, did not come up to it.

And why? Because they did not seek it through faith, but through doing certain things. They stumbled over that stone that makes people stumble,

Brothers, my heart is full of good will toward them; my prayer to God is that they may be saved.

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

Moses said that anyone who carried out the uprightness the Law prescribed would find life through it.

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;

or " 'Who will go down into the depths?' " that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.

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.

For if with your lips you acknowledge the message that Jesus is Lord, and with your mind you believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

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

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!"

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,

you must not look down upon the branches. If you do, remember that you do not support the root; the root supports you.

"But," you will say, "branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in!"