The rest were to follow, some on planks and some on debris from the ship. In this way, everyone safely reached the shore.

They expected that he would swell up or suddenly drop dead. But after they waited a long time and saw nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.

Now the believers from there had heard the news about us and had come to meet us as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage.

After arranging a day with him, many came to him at his lodging. From dawn to dusk he expounded and witnessed about the kingdom of God. He tried to persuade them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets.

Therefore, let it be known to you that this saving work of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen!”

proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with full boldness and without hindrance.

Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle and singled out for God’s good news—

and who has been declared to be the powerful Son of God by the resurrection from the dead according to the Spirit of holiness.

To all who are in Rome, loved by God, called as saints.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because the news of your faith is being reported in all the world.

For God, whom I serve with my spirit in telling the good news about His Son, is my witness that I constantly mention you,

always asking in my prayers that if it is somehow in God’s will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you.

So I am eager to preach the good news to you also who are in Rome.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.

For in it God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.

For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth,

since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them.

For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened.

and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.

Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves.

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.

This is why God delivered them over to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a worthless mind to do what is morally wrong.

slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,

Although they know full well God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die—they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.

We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is based on the truth.

Do you really think—anyone of you who judges those who do such things yet do the same—that you will escape God’s judgment?

Or do you despise the riches of His kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

But because of your hardness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed.

eternal life to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality;

but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does what is good, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.

There is no favoritism with God.

For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be declared righteous.

on the day when God judges what people have kept secret, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus.

Now if you call yourself a Jew, and rest in the law, boast in God,

You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?

For, as it is written: The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.

On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart—by the Spirit, not the letter. That man’s praise is not from men but from God.

Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted with the spoken words of God.

What then? If some did not believe, will their unbelief cancel God’s faithfulness?

Absolutely not! God must be true, even if everyone is a liar, as it is written:

That You may be justified in Your words
and triumph when You judge.

But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? I use a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath?

Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world?

But if by my lie God’s truth is amplified to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?

And why not say, just as some people slanderously claim we say, “Let us do what is evil so that good may come”? Their condemnation is deserved!

There is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away;
all alike have become useless.
There is no one who does what is good,
not even one.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now we know that whatever the law says speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment.

But now, apart from the law, God’s righteousness has been revealed—attested by the Law and the Prophets

—that is, God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe, since there is no distinction.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His restraint God passed over the sins previously committed.

Or is God for Jews only? Is He not also for Gentiles? Yes, for Gentiles too,

since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to brag about—but not before God.

For what does the Scripture say?

Abraham believed God,
and it was credited to him for righteousness.

Likewise, David also speaks of the blessing of the man God credits righteousness to apart from works:

in God’s sight. As it is written: I have made you the father of many nations. He believed in God, who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist.

He did not waver in unbelief at God’s promise but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,

Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have also obtained access through Him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die.

But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!

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

And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have now received this reconciliation through Him.

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by the one man’s trespass the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift overflowed to the many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ.

For in light of the fact that He died, He died to sin once for all; but in light of the fact that He lives, He lives to God.

So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.

But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were transferred to,

But now, since you have been liberated from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification—and the end is eternal life!

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Therefore, my brothers, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the crucified body of the Messiah, so that you may belong to another—to Him who was raised from the dead—that we may bear fruit for God.

So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

Therefore, did what is good cause my death? Absolutely not! On the contrary, sin, in order to be recognized as sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment, sin might become sinful beyond measure.

And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good.

For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it.

For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.

So I discover this principle: When I want to do what is good, evil is with me.

For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God’s law.

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin.

What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain, and as a sin offering,

For the mind-set of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit itself to God’s law, for it is unable to do so.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God lives in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

All those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons.

The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children,

and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—seeing that we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed.

that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

And He who searches the hearts knows the Spirit’s mind-set, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.

What then are we to say about these things?
If God is for us, who is against us?

Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect?
God is the One who justifies.

Who is the one who condemns?
Christ Jesus is the One who died,
but even more, has been raised;
He also is at the right hand of God
and intercedes for us.

height or depth, or any other created thing
will have the power to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!

For I could almost wish to be cursed and cut off from the Messiah for the benefit of my brothers, my own flesh and blood.

The ancestors are theirs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Messiah, who is God over all, praised forever. Amen.