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

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

As God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in spreading the good news of his Son, I never fail to mention you when I pray,

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 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.

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

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,

for, though they knew God, they have not honored him as God or given thanks to him, but they have indulged in futile speculations, until their stupid minds have become dark.

They called themselves wise, but they have turned into fools,

For they had exchanged the truth of God for what was false, and worshiped and served what he had created, instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen!

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

And just as they refused to recognize God any longer, God has abandoned them to unworthy impulses and indecent conduct.

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, if you pose as a judge, for when you pass judgment on someone else, you are condemning yourself, for you, who sit in judgment, do the very same things yourself.

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

but self-seeking people who are disloyal to the truth and responsive only to what is wrong will experience anger and fury,

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 can understand his will, and from hearing the Law read can tell what is right,

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

Circumcision will help you only if you observe the Law; but if you are a lawbreaker, you might as well be uncircumcised.

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

For the real Jew is not the man who is one outwardly, and the real circumcision is not something physical and external.

The real Jew is the man who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, a spiritual, not a literal, thing. Such a man receives his praise not from men, but from God.

What advantage is there then in being a Jew, and what is the use of circumcision?

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?

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!

As the Scripture says, "There is not a single man who is upright,

Their throats are like open graves, They use their tongues to deceive; The venom of asps is behind their lips,

There is no reverence for God before their eyes!"

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.

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 becomes of our boasting? It is shut out. On what principle? What a man does? No, but whether a man has faith.

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

there is but one God, and he will make the circumcised upright on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised upright because of theirs."

Is this using faith to overthrow law? Far from it. This confirms the Law.

For if he was made upright by what he did, it is something to be proud of. But not to be proud of before God,

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

Now paying a workman is not considered a favor, but an obligation,

but a man who has no work to offer, but has faith in him who can make the ungodly upright, has his faith credited to him as uprightness.

"Happy are they whose violations of the Law have been forgiven, whose sins are covered up!

Happy is the man whose sin the Lord will take no account of!"

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,

For if it is the adherents of the Law who are to possess it, faith is nullified and the promise amounts to nothing!

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;

as the Scripture says, "I have made you the father of many nations." The promise is guaranteed in the very sight of God in whom he had faith, who can bring the dead to life and call into being what does not exist.

That was why it was credited to him as uprightness.

but also on ours, for it is to be credited also to us who have faith in him who raised from the dead our Lord Jesus,

who was given up to death to make up for our offenses, and raised to life to make us upright.

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

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.

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

For when we were still helpless, at the decisive moment Christ died for us godless men.

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!

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.

It is true sin was in the world before the Law was given, and men are not charged with sin where there is no law.

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.

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.

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 when a man is dead he is free from the claims of sin.

For when he died, he became once for all dead to sin; the life he now lives is a life in relation to God.

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

and you must not offer the parts of your bodies to sin as the instruments of wrong, but offer yourselves to God as men brought back from death to life, and offer the parts of your bodies to him as instruments of uprightness.

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?

I use these familiar human terms because of the limitations of your nature. For just as you before gave up the parts of your bodies in slavery to vice and greater and greater license, you must now give them up in slavery to uprightness, which leads to consecration.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free as far as uprightness was concerned.

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.

For the wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is eternal life through union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

Do you not know, brothers??or I am speaking to men who know what law is??hat law governs a man only as long as he lives?

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, the marriage law no longer applies to her.

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.

For when we were living mere physical lives the sinful passions, awakened by the Law, operated through the organs of our bodies to make us bear fruit for death.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.