always entreating God that somehow by His will I may some day at last succeed in getting to see you.

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

For in the gospel God's righteousness is being revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, "The righteous will live by faith."

because they overflow with every sort of evil-doing, wickedness, greed, and malice; they are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, ill-will;

So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on those who practice these things and then do them yourself, do you think you will escape God's judgment?

Or do you have no regard for the wealth of His kindness and tolerance and patience [in withholding His wrath]? Are you [actually] unaware or ignorant [of the fact] that God’s kindness leads you to repentance [that is, to change your inner self, your old way of thinking—seek His purpose for your life]?

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,

To those who go on with good works in the hope of glory and honour and salvation from death, he will give eternal life:

But to those who, from a love of competition, are not guided by what is true, will come the heat of his wrath,

There will be suffering and anguish for every human being who practices doing evil, for Jews first and for Greeks as well.

But glory, honor, and peace will come to everyone who practices doing good, the Jew first and then the Greek;

All who sin without having the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.

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,

on the day when God through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the good news I preach, will judge the secrets people have kept.

But, perhaps, you bear the name of 'Jew,' and are relying upon Law, and boast of belonging to God, and understand his will,

and understand His will, and by being instructed in the law can know the things that excel,

train the foolish, teach the young, since you have knowledge and truth formulated in the Law??21 why, then, will you teach others and refuse to teach yourself? Will you preach against stealing, and yet steal yourself?

Will you warn men against adultery, and yet practice it yourself? Will you pretend to detest idols, and yet rob their temples?

Will you boast of the Law and yet dishonor God by breaking it?

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

So if the uncircumcised heathen man observes the just demands of the law, will he not be counted as though he were a Jew?

The man who is uncircumcised physically but who keeps the Law will condemn you who break the Law, even though you have the written Law and circumcision.

No, a person is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, brought about by the Spirit, not by a written law. That person's praise will come from God, not from people.

For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief destroy the faith of God?

Absolutely not! Let God be proven true, and every human being shown up as a liar, just as it is written: "so that you will be justified in your words and will prevail when you are judged."

But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what will we say? Is God unrighteous who inflicts wrath? I speak like men do.

May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world?

Let us not do evil so that good may come (a statement which we are falsely said by some to have made), because such behaviour will have its right punishment.

Therefore, God will not justify any human being by means of the actions prescribed by the Law, for through the Law comes the full knowledge of sin.

Is God the God of the Jews only, and not also of the Gentiles? Surely of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God who will justify the circumcision by faith,

since there is but one God, who will consider the Jews in right standing with Himself, only on condition of their faith, and the heathen peoples on the same condition.

What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh?

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

For the outcome of the law is wrath; but where there is no law it will not be broken.

For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

Hoping in spite of hopeless circumstances, he believed that he would become "the father of many nations," just as he had been told: "This is how many descendants you will have."

but also for us. Our faith will be regarded in the same way, if we believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification, it will be reckoned.

through whom also we have had admission into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in the hope of the glory which God will confer.

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

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.

Now that we have been justified by his blood, how much more will we be saved from wrath through him!

For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life!

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.

For just as through one man's disobedience many people were made sinners, so also through one man's obedience many people will be made righteous.

so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What shall we say then? We will continue in sin that grace may abound?

May it not happen! How will we who died to sin, still live in it?

For if we have become united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Now if we have died with the Messiah, we believe that we will also live with him,

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

For sin will not have mastery over you, because you are not under Law but under grace.

Do you not know that when you continually offer yourselves to someone to do his will, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey, either [slaves] of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness (right standing with God)?

And having been set free from sin, you have become the slaves of righteousness [of conformity to God’s will and purpose].

I will speak grossly because of the infirmity of your flesh. As ye have given your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, from iniquity unto iniquity: even so now give your members servants unto righteousness, that ye may be sanctified.

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.

What will we say then? The law is sin? May it not happen! Yet I did not know sin except through law. For likewise I would not have known lust, if the law did not say, Thou shall not covet.

for that which I work, I do not acknowledge; for not what I will, this I practise, but what I hate, this I do.

And if what I do not will, this I do, I consent to the law that it is good,

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 the good that I will, I do not; but the evil that I do not will, this I practise.

And if what I do not will, this I do, it is no longer I that work it, but the sin that is dwelling in me.

I find then the law upon me who will to practise what is right, that with me evil is there.

but I find a different law in my bodily faculties, waging war with the law of my will, and taking me prisoner to that law of sin which is in my bodily faculties.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is infected by death?

Oh, thank God! it is through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself in my will am in thralldom to the law of God; yet in my animal nature I am in thralldom to the law of sin.

For this cause those who are in Christ Jesus will not be judged as sinners.

For the one whose mind is [controlled] by the flesh will suffer [spiritual] death; but the one whose mind is [controlled] by the Holy Spirit will enjoy [never ending] life and peace.

If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead has His home within you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give your mortal bodies life through His Spirit that has His home within you.

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.

And if we are children, we have a right to a part in the heritage; a part in the things of God, together with Christ; so that if we have a part in his pain, we will in the same way have a part in his glory.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us.

for to vanity was the creation made subject -- not of its will, but because of Him who did subject it -- in hope,

that the same creation will be delivered from the servitude of destruction and [brought] into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

And not only so, but we who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we have sorrow in our minds, waiting for the time when we will take our place as sons, that is, the salvation of our bodies.

But if we have hope for that which we see not, then we will be able to go on waiting for it.

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

What then will we say to these things? If God is for us, who is 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?

Who will accuse God's elect? It is God who justifies!

Who will give a decision against us? It is Christ Jesus who not only was put to death, but came again from the dead, who is now at the right hand of God, taking our part.

Who will separate us from the Messiah's love? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or a violent death do this?

nor evil forces above or beneath, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God as shown in Christ Jesus our Lord.

nor are they all children of Abraham, because they are his descendants, but the promise was "In the line of Isaac your descendants will I be counted."

For this is the language of the promise, "About this time next year I will come back, and Sarah will have a son."

before the children were born, or had done any thing good or evil, to the end that Gods purpose according to election might stand, not depending on works, but on the will of him that calleth,

she was told, "The elder will be a slave to the younger."

What will we say then? Is there injustice from God? May it not happen!

For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on any man that I choose to have mercy on, and take pity on any man that I choose to take pity on."

Therefore, God's choice does not depend on a person's will or effort, but on God himself, who shows mercy.

Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

So you will ask me, "Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?"

On the contrary, O man, who are you who answers back to God? Will what is molded say to the one who molded [it], "Why did you make me like this"?

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,

In the very place where it was told them, "You are not my people,' they will be called children of the living God."

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

for the Lord will completely and quickly execute His sentence on the earth."

What will we say then? That the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness from faith.