First, through Jesus Christ I thank my God for you all, because the report of your faith is spreading all over the world.

For I am longing to see you, to impart to you some spiritual gift, that you may be strengthened;

So, as far as I can, I am eager to preach the good news to you at Rome, too.

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.

For in the good news God's Way of man's right standing with Him is uncovered, the Way of faith that leads to greater faith, just as the Scripture says, "The upright man must live by faith."

For God's anger from heaven is being uncovered against all the impiety and wickedness of the men who in their wickedness are suppressing the truth;

because what can be known of God is clear to their inner moral sense; for in this way God Himself has shown it to them.

for they had utterly transformed the reality of God into what was unreal, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

This is why God has given them up to degrading passions. For their females have exchanged their natural function for one that is unnatural,

and males too have forsaken the natural function of females and been consumed by flaming passion for one another, males practicing shameful vice with other males, and continuing to suffer in their persons the inevitable penalty for doing what is improper.

Therefore, you have no excuse, whoever you are, who pose as a judge of others, for when you pass judgment on another, you condemn yourself, for you who pose as a judge are practicing the very same sins yourself.

And you, who pose as a judge of those who practice such sins and yet continue doing the same yourself, do you for once suppose that you are going to escape the judgment of God?

But in your stubbornness and impenitence of heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when the justice of God's judgments will be uncovered.

For when He finally judges, He will pay everyone with exactness for what he has done,

eternal life to those who patiently continue doing good and striving for glory, honor, and immortality,

for there is no partiality in God's dealings.

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

for they show that the deeds the law demands are written on their hearts, because their consciences will testify for them, and their inner thoughts will either accuse or defend them,

For, as the Scripture says, the name of God is abused among the heathen because of you.

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

But if our wrongdoing brings to light the uprightness of God, what shall we infer? Is it wrong (I am using everyday human terms) for God to inflict punishment?

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,

No one understands, no one is searching for God;

Their feet are swift for shedding blood,

There is no reverence for God before their eyes."

Because no human creature can be brought into right standing with God by observing the law. For all the law can do is to make men conscious of sin.

God's own way of giving men right standing with Himself is through faith in Jesus Christ. It is for everybody who has faith, for no distinction at all is made.

For everybody has sinned and everybody continues to come short of God's glory,

but anybody may have right standing with God as a free gift of His undeserved favor, through the ransom provided in Christ Jesus.

For God once publicly offered Him in His death as a sacrifice of reconciliation through faith, to demonstrate His own justice (for in His forbearance God had passed over men's former sins);

For we hold that a man is brought into right standing with God by faith, that observance of the law has no connection with 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.

For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham put his faith in God, and it was credited to him as right standing with God."

Now does this happiness come to the Jews alone, or to the heathen peoples too? For we say, "Abraham's faith was credited to him as right standing."

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.

For if the law party is to possess the world, then faith has been nullified and the promise has been made null and void.

For the law results in wrath alone, but where there is no law, there can be no violation of it.

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,

Because he never weakened in faith, he calmly contemplated his own vital powers as worn out (for he was about one hundred years old) and the inability of Sarah to bear a child,

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

it was for our sakes too, for it is going to be credited to us who put our faith in God who raised from the dead our Lord Jesus,

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

and hope never disappoints us; for through the Holy Spirit that has been given us, God's love has flooded our hearts.

For when we were still helpless, Christ at the proper time died for us ungodly men.

Now a man will scarcely ever give his life for an upright person, though once in a while a man is brave enough to die for a generous friend.

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

For if while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, it is much more certain that since we have been reconciled we shall finally be saved through His new life.

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.

For if by one man's offense death reigned through that one, to a much greater degree will those who continue to receive the overflow of His unmerited favor and His gift of right standing with Himself, reign in real life through One, Jesus Christ.

So, as through one offense there resulted condemnation for all men, just so through one act of uprightness there resulted right standing involving life for all men.

For just as by that man's disobedience the whole race of men were constituted sinners, so by this One's obedience the whole race of men may be brought into right standing with God.

What is our conclusion then? Are we to continue to sin for His unmerited favor to multiply?

For if we have grown into fellowship with Him by sharing a death like His, surely we shall share a resurrection life like His,

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.

For when a man is dead, he is freed from the claims of sin.

for we know that Christ, who once was raised from the dead, will never die again; death has no more power over Him.

For by the death He died He once for all ended His relation to sin, and by the life He now is living He lives in unbroken relation to God.

and you must stop offering to sin the parts of your bodies as instruments for wrongdoing, but you must once for all offer yourselves to God as persons raised from the dead to live on perpetually, and once for all offer the parts of your bodies to God as instruments for right-doing.

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.

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?

I am speaking in familiar human terms because of the frailty of your nature. For just as you formerly offered the parts of your bodies in slavery to impurity and to ever increasing lawlessness, so now you must once for all offer them in slavery to right-doing, which leads to consecration.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free so far as doing right was concerned.

What benefit did you then derive from doing the things of which you are now ashamed? None, for they end in death.

For the wages paid by sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life through union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

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?

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is freed from the marriage bond.

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.

So, my brothers, you too in the body of Christ have ended your relation to the law, so that you may be married to another husband, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

For when we were living in accordance with our lower nature, the sinful passions that were aroused by the law were operating in the parts of our bodies to make us bear fruit that leads to death.

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."

Sin found its rallying point in that command and stirred within me every sort of evil desire, for without law, sin is lifeless.

For sin found its rallying point in that command and through it deceived me and killed me.

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.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am made of flesh that is frail, sold into slavery to sin.

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.

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.

For in accordance with my better inner nature I approve God's law,

So then there is no condemnation at all for those who are in union with Christ Jesus.

For the life-giving power of the Spirit through union with Christ Jesus has set us free from the power of sin and death.

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,

For people who live by the standard set by their lower nature are usually thinking the things suggested by that nature, and people who live by the standard set by the Spirit are usually thinking the things suggested by the Spirit.

For to be thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means death, but to be thinking the things suggested by the Spirit means life and peace.

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.

for if you live by such a standard, you are going to die, but if by the Spirit you put a stop to the doings of your lower nature, you will live.

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

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 I consider all that we suffer in this present life is nothing to be compared with the glory which by-and-by is to be uncovered for us.

For all nature is expectantly waiting for the unveiling of the sons of God.

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

that even nature itself might finally be set free from its bondage to decay, so as to share the glorious freedom of God's children.

For we were saved in such a hope.

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,

and He who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit thinks, for He pleads for His people in accordance with God's will.

Yes, we know that all things go on working together for the good of those who keep on loving God, who are called in accordance with God's purpose.

For those on whom He set His heart beforehand He marked off as His own to be made like His Son, that He might be the eldest of many brothers;

What are we then to say to facts like these? If God is for us, who can be against us?

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?