To all in Rome who are dear to God and have been called to become Christ's People, From Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, who has been called to become an Apostle, and has been set apart to tell God's Good News.

Through whom grace has been given to us, sending us out to make disciples to the faith among all nations, for his name:

among whom Jesus Christ has also called you:

First of all, I give praise to my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because news of your faith has gone into all the world.

You may be certain, my brothers, that it has frequently been in my mind to come to you (but till now I was kept from it), so that I might have some fruit from you in the same way as I have had it from the other nations.

For I have no feeling of shame about the good news, because it is the power of God giving salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first, and then to the Greek.

For the righteousness of God is revealed in him from faith to faith: as has been written, But the just shall live by faith.

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

For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.

So God has given them up to sexual impurity, in the evil trend of their heart's desires, so that they degrade their own bodies with one another,

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 since these people refused to acknowledge God, He has allowed [or, abandoned] them to have degraded minds and to practice those things which they should not do.

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

tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who has worked out evil; of the Jew first, and also of the Greek.

and knowest his will, and hast experience of good and bad, in that thou art informed by the law:

and hast confidence that thou thyself art a leader of blind ones, a light of those in darkness,

An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.

For the name of God is blasphemed by you among the Gentiles, as has been written.

For circumcision benefits you if you observe the law, but if you are a lawbreaker, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

What special privilege, then, has a Jew? Or, what benefit does circumcision confer?

it could not be so: but let God be true, and every man a liar; as indeed it has been written, In order that you may be justified in your words, and shall prevail, in your judgment.

For if the truth of God, in my lie, has more abounded to his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?

as has been written, There is no one good, not one:

Not one who has the knowledge of what is right, not one who is a searcher after God;

Everyone has turned away [from God]. All of them have become worthless. No one is [always] kind; no, not even one person."

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

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,

whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood, for the shewing forth of his righteousness, in respect of the passing by the sins that had taken place before, through the forbearance of God;

God presented Him to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus.

Therefore, where [is] boasting? It has been excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.

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.

What then can we say that Abraham, our physical ancestor, has found?

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

the reward is not counted as a favour to him that has done good actions, but as a debt:

whereas he that trusts in God to be made righteous, tho' he has not done such actions, shall find his faith accounted as righteousness.

Just as David himself describes the bliss of the man who has righteousness counted to him by God apart from what he does ??7 Blessed are they whose breaches of the Law are forgiven, whose sins are covered!

'Blessed are those whose wrong-doings have been forgiven and over whose sins a veil has been drawn!

Does this blessedness then rest on the circumcision, or also on the uncircumcision? For we say that faith has been reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.

How then has it been reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

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

As it is written, "I have made thee a father to many nations," even before God whom thou hast believed, which quickeneth the dead and called those things which be not, as though they were.

and being fully persuaded that what he has promised he is able also to do;

but on ours also, to whom, believing on him who has raised from among the dead Jesus our Lord,

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

who has given us access by faith to that degree of favour, we are in, by which we triumph in the hopes of divine glory.

endurance produces character, and character produces hope ??5 a hope which never disappoints us, since God's love floods our hearts through the holy Spirit which has been given to us.

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 we being still without strength, in the due time Christ has died for the ungodly.

but God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through [the action of] one man [i.e., Adam] and [physical] death through that sin, so [physical] death has spread to all people, because all people have sinned. [Note: This difficult passage (verses 12-21) seems to be saying that the entire human race must experience physical death because of Adam's sin (I Cor. 5:22), which is somehow considered to be everyone's sin. See Murray, pp. 180-187, for a thorough discussion].

But shall not the act of favour be as the offence? For if by the offence of one the many have died, much rather has the grace of God, and the free gift in grace, which is by the one man Jesus Christ, abounded unto the many.

And shall not as by one that has sinned be the gift? For the judgment was of one to condemnation, but the act of favour, of many offences unto justification.

For, if by the wrongdoing of one, death was ruling through the one, much more will those to whom has come the wealth of grace and the giving of righteousness, be ruling in life through the one, even Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as, by one offense, sentence came on all men to condemnation, so, also, by one act of righteousness, the gift has come on all men to justification of life.

But law came in, in order that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded grace has overabounded,

in order that, even as sin has reigned in the power of death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We have been buried therefore with him by baptism unto death, in order that, even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life.

knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin.

since a person who has died is freed from sin’s claims.

knowing that Christ, [because he] has been raised from the dead, is going to die no more, death no longer being master over him.

For in that he has died, he has died to sin once for all; but in that he lives, he lives to God.

Since I am speaking to those who understand law, brothers, are you unaware that the law has authority over someone as long as he lives?

For the woman under authority to the living husband has been bound by law, but if the husband should die, she has been released from the law of the husband.

Therefore while the husband lives, she shall be called an adulteress if she is married to another man; but if the husband has died, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress if married to another man.

So that, my brethren, ye also have been made dead to the law by the body of the Christ, to be to another, who has been raised up from among the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.

But seeing that we have died to that which once held us in bondage, the Law has now no hold over us, so that we render a service which, instead of being old and formal, is new and spiritual.

Has therefore what is good become death to me? May it not happen! Instead, it is sin, so that it might be revealed, sin working death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin might become sinful to extreme.

Now really it is not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me.

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.

But if I do the things that I do not want to do, it is really not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me.

Thank God! It has been done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my higher nature I am a slave to the law of God, but in my lower nature, to the law of sin.

because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh,

But ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if indeed God's Spirit dwell in you; but if any one has not the Spirit of Christ he is not of him:

But if Christ is in you, though your body must die because of sin, yet your spirit has Life because of righteousness.

But if the Spirit of him that has raised up Jesus from among the dead dwell in you, he that has raised up Christ from among the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies also on account of his Spirit which dwells in you.

It is not a consciousness of servitude that has been imparted to you, to fill you with fear again, but the consciousness of adoption as sons, which makes us cry, "Abba!" that is, Father.

For the creation has been subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of the one who subjected [it], in hope

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.

for we are saved but by hope: but hope supposes things not yet present; for how can a man hope for what he has now in possession?

And he who is the searcher of hearts has knowledge of the mind of the Spirit, because he is making prayers for the saints in agreement with the mind of God.

We know too, that all things co-operate for the good of those who love God, who, pursuant to his purpose, has now called them:

Because whom he has foreknown, he has also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he should be the firstborn among many brethren.

but whom he predispos'd, he calls: and whom he has call'd, he justifies: and whom he has justified, he glorifies.

He who, yea, has not spared his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him grant us all things?

Who can bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who declared them in right standing;

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.

As has been written, that We are killed all day for thy sake; we are counted as sheep of the slaughter.

But in all these things we more than conquer through him that has loved us.

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!

the patriarchs, and from them by natural descent the Christ has come, who is exalted over all, God blessed forever. Amen!

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

as has been written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

So then it is not a question of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy.

Consequently therefore, he has mercy on whomever he wishes, and he hardens whomever he wishes.

Therefore you will say to me, "Why then does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will?

Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor?

if the divine Being has patiently bore with those objects of his displeasure, that had been working out their own destruction, why may he not reveal himself to make them feel his vindictive power,