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 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."

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?

But in your obstinacy and impenitence you are storing up wrath for yourself on the Day of Wrath, when the justice of God will burst forth.

For he will pay every man for what he has done.

Those who by persistently doing right strive for glory, honor, and immortality will have eternal life,

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

but there will be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does right, the Jew first, and the Greek also,

All who sin without having the Law will perish without regard to the Law, and all who sin under the Law will be judged by the Law.

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,

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

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

And if, although they are physically uncircumcised, they obey the Law, they will condemn you, who break the Law, although you have it in writing, and are circumcised.

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!

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."

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

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

Why, a man will hardly give his life for an upright person, though perhaps for a really good man some may be brave enough to die.

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.

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

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.

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.

for if you live under the control of the physical you will die, but if, by means of the Spirit, you put the body's doings to death, you will live.

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

and he who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit means, for it pleads for God's people in accordance with his will.

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

nor any supernatural forces either of height or depth will be able to separate us from the love God has shown in Christ Jesus our Lord!

nor are they all children of Abraham because they are descended from him, but he was told, "The line of Isaac will be called your descendants."

For this is what the promise said: "When I come back at this time next year, Sarah will have a son."

she was told, "The elder will be the younger's slave."

He said to Moses, "I will have mercy on the man on whom I choose to have mercy, and take pity on the man on whom I choose to take pity."

So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on the mercy of God.

"Why, then," you will ask, "does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?"

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,

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

for the Lord will execute his sentence rigorously and swiftly on the earth."

as the Scripture says, "See, I will put a stone on Zion to make people stumble, and a rock to trip over, But no one who has faith in it will be disappointed."

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

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.

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.

For the Scripture says, "No one who has faith in him will be disappointed."

For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

But I ask again, did Israel fail to understand? Why, to begin with, Moses said, "I will make you jealous of what is no nation at all, I will exasperate you at a senseless nation."

Then Isaiah broke out boldly and said, "I have been found by men who were not looking for me, I have shown myself to men who were not asking what my will was."

But if their false step has so enriched the world, and their defeat has so enriched the heathen, how much more good the addition of their full number will do!

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you who were only a wild olive shoot have been grafted in, in place of them, and made to share the richness of the olive's root,

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

for if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you.

Observe then the goodness and the severity of God??everity to those who have fallen, but goodness to you, provided you abide by his goodness, for otherwise, you in your turn will be pruned away.

Those others too, if they do not cling to their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.

For if you were cut from a wild olive and unnaturally grafted upon a cultivated one, how much easier it will be to graft them upon the olive to which they properly belong!

and then all Israel will be saved, just as the Scripture says, "The deliverer will come from Zion, He will drive all ungodliness away from Jacob,

And this will be my agreement with them, When I take away their sins."

"Or who has advanced anything to him, for which he will have to be repaid?"

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by this mercy of God, to offer your bodies in a living sacrifice that will be holy and acceptable to God; that is your rational worship.

You must not adopt the customs of this world but by your new attitude of mind be transformed so that you can find out what God's will is??hat is good, pleasing, and perfect.

Do not take your revenge, dear friends, but leave room for God's anger, for the Scripture says, "Vengeance belongs to me; I will pay them back, says the Lord."

No! If your enemy is hungry, feed him! If he is thirsty, give him something to drink! For if you do, you will heap burning coals upon his head!

so that anyone who resists the authorities sets himself in opposition to what God has ordained, and those who oppose him will bring down judgment upon themselves.

The man who does right has nothing to fear from the magistrates, as the wrongdoer has. If you want to have no fear of the authorities, do right, and they will commend you for it,

The man who will eat anything must not look down on the man who abstains from some things, and the man who abstains from them must not criticize the one who does not, for God has accepted him.

Who are you to criticize someone else's servant? It is for his own master to say whether he succeeds or fails; and he will succeed, for the Master can make him do so.

For the Scripture says, "As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bend before me, And every tongue will make its confession to God."

Let us, therefore, keep before us whatever will contribute to peace and the development of one another.

and causing the heathen to praise God for his mercy; as the Scripture says, "I will give thanks to you for this among the heathen, And sing in honor of your name."

Again Isaiah says, "The descendant of Jesse will come, The one who is to rise to rule the heathen; The heathen will set their hopes on him."

For I will venture to speak only of what Christ has accomplished through me in winning the heathen to obedience, by word and action,

As the Scripture says, "They who have never been told of him will see, And they who have never heard will understand!"

So when I have finished this matter, and seen this contribution safely into their possession, I will start for Spain, and come to you on the way,

and I know that when I do come to see you, I will come with Christ's fullest blessing.

so that, if it is God's will, I may come with a glad heart to see you and enjoy a visit with you.

And God, who is the source of peace, will soon crush Satan under your feet. The blessing of our Lord Jesus be with you.