Asking that, if he be willing, I may some day at last find the way open to visit you.

Or rather that both you and I may find encouragement in each other's faith.

I want you to know, Brothers, that I have many times intended coming to see you-but until now I have been prevented-that I might find among you some fruit of my labors, as I have already among the other nations.

For ever since the creation of the universe God's invisible attributes-his everlasting power and divinity-are to be seen and studied in his works, so that men have no excuse;

That, I say, is why God abandoned them to degrading passions. Even the women among them perverted the natural use of their bodies to the unnatural;

While the men, disregarding that for which women were intended by nature, were consumed with passion for one another. Men indulged in vile practices with men, and incurred in their own persons the inevitable penalty for their perverseness.

Then, as they would not keep God before their minds, God abandoned them to depraved thoughts, so that they did all kinds of shameful things.

Well aware of God's decree, that those who do such things deserve to die, not only are they guilty of them themselves, but they even applaud those who do them.

And we know that God's judgment falls unerringly upon those who do them.

You who judge those that do such things and yet are yourself guilty of them-do you suppose that you of all men will escape God's judgment?

Or do you think lightly of his abundant kindness, patience, and forbearance, not realizing that his kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

To those who, by perseverance in doing good, aim at glory, honor, and all that is imperishable, he will give Immortal Life;

It is not those who hear the words of a Law that are righteous before God, but it is those who obey it that will be pronounced righteous.

On the day when God passes judgment on men's inmost lives, as the Good News that I tell declares that he will do through Christ Jesus.

Perhaps you are confident that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in the dark, an instructor of the unintelligent,

God must prove true, though every man prove a liar! As Scripture says of God-'That thou mayest be pronounced righteous in what thou sayest, and gain thy cause when men would judge thee.'

Why should we not say-as some people slanderously assert that we do say-'Let us do evil that good may come'? The condemnation of such men is indeed just!

What follows, then? Are we Jews in any way superior to others? Not at all. Our indictment against both Jews and Greeks was that all alike were in subjection to sin.

Now we know that everything said in the Law is addressed to those who are under its authority, in order that every mouth may be closed, and the whole world become liable to the judgment of God.

For 'no human being will be pronounced righteous before God' as the result of obedience to Law; for it is Law that shows what sin is.

For God set him before the world, to be, by the shedding of his blood, a means of reconciliation through faith. And this God did to prove his righteousness, and because, in his forbearance, he had passed over the sins that men had previously committed;

As a proof, I repeat, at the present time, of his own righteousness, that he might be righteous in our eyes, and might pronounce righteous the man who takes his stand on faith in Jesus.

For we conclude that a man is pronounced righteous on the ground of faith, quite apart from obedience to Law.

Or can it be that God is the God only of the Jews? Is not he also the God of the Gentiles?

Is this blessing, then, pronounced upon the circumcised only or upon the uncircumcised as well? We say that-'Abraham's faith was regarded by God as righteousness.'

Not after, but before. And it was as a sign of this that he received the rite of circumcision-to attest the righteousness due to the faith of an uncircumcised man-in order that he might be the father of all who have faith in God even when uncircumcised, that they also may be regarded by God as righteous;

As well as father of the circumcised-to those who are not only circumcised, but who also follow our father Abraham in that faith which he had while still uncircumcised.

For the promise that he should inherit the world did not come to Abraham or his descendants through Law, but through the righteousness due to faith.

That is why all is made to depend upon faith, that all may be God's gift, and in order that the fulfillment of the promise may be made certain for all Abraham's descendants-not only for those who take their stand on the Law, but also for those who take their stand on the faith of Abraham. (He is the Father of us all;

As Scripture says-'I have made thee the Father of many nations.') And this they do in the sight of that God in whom Abraham had faith, and who gives life to the dead, and speaks of what does not yet exist as if it did.

With no ground for hope, Abraham, sustained by hope, put faith in God; in order that, in fulfillment of the words-'So many shall thy descendants be,' he might become 'the Father of many nations.'

Though he was nearly a hundred years old, yet his faith did not fail him, even when he thought of his own body, then utterly worn out, and remembered that Sarah was past bearing children.

On the contrary, his faith gave him strength; and he praised God, in the firm conviction that what God has promised he is also able to carry out.

For Jesus 'was given up to death to atone for our offences,' and was raised to life that we might be pronounced righteous.

It is through him that, by reason of our faith, we have obtained admission to that place in God's favor in which we not stand. So let us exult in our hope of attaining God's glorious ideal.

And not only that, but let us also exult in our troubles;

For we know that trouble develops endurance, and endurance strength of character, and strength of character hope,

And that 'hope never disappoints.' For the love of God has filled our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given us;

Seeing that, while we were still powerless, Christ, in God's good time, died on behalf of the godless.

But God puts his love for us beyond all doubt by the fact that Christ died on our behalf while we were still sinners.

Much more, then, now that we have been pronounced righteous by virtue of the shedding of his blood, shall we be saved through him from the Wrath of God.

For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, much more, now that we have become reconciled, shall we be saved by virtue of Christ's Life.

And not only that, but we exult in God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, through whom we have now obtained this reconciliation.

For if, by reason of the offence of the one man, Death reigned through that one man, far more will those, upon whom God's loving- kindness and his gift of righteousness are lavished, find Life, and reign through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Briefly then, just as a single offence resulted for all mankind in condemnation, so, too, a single decree of righteousness resulted for all mankind in that declaration of righteousness which brings Life.

Law was introduced in order that offences might be multiplied. But, where sins were multiplied, the loving-kindness of God was lavished the more,

What are we to say, then? Are we to continue to sin, in order that God's loving-kindness may be multiplied?

Or can it be that you do not know that all of us, who were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, in our baptism shared his death?

Consequently, through sharing his death in our baptism, we were buried with him; that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by a manifestation of the Father's power, so we also may live a new Life.

We recognize the truth that our old self was crucified with Christ, in order that the body, the stronghold of Sin, might be rendered powerless, so that we should no longer be slaves to Sin.

And our belief is, that, as we have shared Christ's Death, we shall also share his Life.

We know, indeed, that Christ, having once risen from the dead, will not die again. Death has power over him no longer.

For the death that he died was a death to sin, once and for all. But the Life that he now lives, he lives for God.

Surely you know that, when you offer yourselves as servants, to obey any one, you are the servants of the person whom you obey, whether the service be that of Sin which leads to Death, or that of Duty which leads to Righteousness.

God be thanked that, though you were once servants of Sin, yet you learned to give hearty obedience to that form of doctrine under which you were placed.

But what were the fruits that you reaped from those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of such things is Death.

But now that you have been set free from the control of Sin, and have become servants to God, the fruit that you reap is an ever-increasing holiness, and the end Immortal Life.

Surely, Brothers, you know (for I am speaking to men who know what Law means) that Law has power over a man only as long as he lives.

For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband while he is living; but, if her husband dies, she is set free from the law that bound her to him.

And so with you, my Brothers; as far as the Law was concerned, you underwent death in the crucified body of the Christ, so that you might be united to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that our lives might bear fruit for God.

When we were living merely earthly lives, our sinful passions, aroused by the Law, were active in every part of our bodies, with the result that our lives bore fruit for Death.

But now we are set free from the Law, because we are dead to that which once kept us under restraint; and so we serve under new, spiritual conditions, and not under old, written regulations.

What are we to say, then? That Law and sin are the same thing? Heaven forbid! On the contrary, I should not have learned what sin is, had not it been for Law. If the Law did not say 'Thou shalt not covet,' I should not know what it is to covet.

The very Commandment that should have meant Life I found to result in Death!

Did, then, a thing, which in itself was good, involve Death in my case? Heaven forbid! It was sin that involved Death; so that, by its use of what I regarded as good to bring about my Death, its true nature might appear; and in this way the Commandment showed how intensely sinful sin is.

We know that the Law is spiritual, but I am earthly-sold into slavery to Sin.

I do not understand my own actions. For I am so far from habitually doing what I want to do, that I find myself doing the very thing that I hate.

But when I do what I want not to do, I am admitting that the Law is right.

This being so, the action is no longer my own, but that of Sin which is within me.

I know that there is nothing good in me-I mean in my earthly nature. For, although it is easy for me to want to do right, to act rightly is not easy.

I fail to do the good thing that I want to do, but the bad thing that I want not to do-that I habitually do.

But, when I do the very thing that I want not to do, the action is no longer my own, but that of Sin which is within me.

This, then, is the law that I find-When I want to do right, wrong presents itself!

But throughout my body I see a different law, one which is in conflict with the law accepted by my reason, and which endeavors to make me a prisoner to that law of Sin which exists throughout my body.

Miserable man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body that is bringing me to this Death?

What Law could not do, in so far as our earthly nature weakened its action, God did, by sending his own Son, with a nature resembling our sinful nature, to atone for sin. He condemned sin in that earthly nature,

So that the requirements of the Law might be satisfied in us who live now in obedience, not to our earthly nature, but to the Spirit.

So then, Brothers, we owe nothing to our earthly nature, that we should live in obedience to it.

And if children, then heirs-heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, since we share Christ's sufferings in order that we may also share his Glory.

I do not count the sufferings of our present life worthy of mention when compared with the Glory that is to be revealed and bestowed upon us.

Yet not without the hope that some day Nature, also, will be set free from enslavement to decay, and will attain to the freedom which will mark the Glory of the Children of God.

We know, indeed, that all Nature alike has been groaning in the pains of labor to this very hour.

So, also, the Spirit supports us in our weakness. We do not even know how to pray as we should; but the Spirit himself pleads for us in sighs that can find no utterance.

But we do know that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him-those who have received the Call in accordance with his purpose.

For those whom God chose from the first he also destined from the first to be transformed into likeness to his Son, so that his Son might be the eldest among many Brothers.

For I am persuaded that neither Death, nor Life, nor Angels, nor Archangels, nor the Present, nor the Future, nor any Powers,

Bears me out when I say that there is a great weight of sorrow upon me and that my heart is never free from pain.

I could wish that I were myself accursed and severed from the Christ, for the sake of my Brothers-my own countrymen.

Not that God's Word has failed. For it is not all who are descended from Israel who are true Israelites;

This means that it is not the children born in the course of nature who are God's Children, but it is the children born in fulfillment of the Promise who are to be regarded as Abraham's descendants.

Nor is that all. There is also the case of Rebecca, when she was about to bear children to our ancestor Isaac.

For in order that the purpose of God, working through selection, might not fail-a selection depending, not on obedience, but on his Call-Rebecca was told, before her children were born and before they had done anything either right or wrong,

that 'the elder would be a servant to the younger.'

In Scripture, again, it is said to Pharaoh-'It was for this very purpose that I raised thee to the throne, to show my power by my dealings with thee, and to make my name known throughout the world.'

Has not the potter absolute power over his clay, so that out of the same lump he makes one thing for better, and another for common, use?

What are we to say, then? Why, that Gentiles, who were not in search of righteousness, secured it-a righteousness which was the result of faith;

I can testify that they are zealous for the honor of God; but they are not guided by true insight,

For Christ has brought Law to an end, so that righteousness may be obtained by every one who believes in him.

For Moses writes that, as for the righteousness which results from Law, 'those who practice it will find Life through it.'

For, if with your lips you acknowledge the truth of the Message that JESUS IS LORD, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.