Romans
From Paul, a servant of Messiah Jesus, called to be an Apostle, set apart for God’s Gospel.
He promised this Gospel in advance through His
prophets in the Holy Scriptures,
about His Son, who came
into existence as a physical descendant of David,
and was marked out to
be the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead,
according to the spirit of holiness, Jesus Messiah our lord.
Through him
we have received grace and Apostleship, to bring about the obedience of faith
among all the Gentiles for his name.
And you are included among those invited to belong to Jesus the Messiah.
To all of you in Rome beloved by
God and invited to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God who is our Father and from the lord Jesus Messiah.
First of all I thank my God through Jesus Messiah for all of you, because
your faith is being proclaimed throughout the entire world.
God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the Gospel of His Son,
how I
constantly remember you,
always requesting in my prayers that by the will of God I
may be finally enabled to visit you.
For I long to see you so that I may
give you a spiritual blessing to strengthen you –
that is,
we may be encouraged mutually by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.
I
want you to know, brothers and sisters, that I often have planned to visit you,
but I was prevented so far. I wanted to harvest some spiritual fruit
among you
also, just as among other Gentiles.
I am obligated to the Greeks and all the
other nations, to the educated and the uneducated.
And that is why I am eager to proclaim
the Gospel to you also who live in Rome.
For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it contains the power of
God
leading to salvation for everyone who believes it, for Jews first
and also for Gentiles.
In the Gospel God’s way of being right is
revealed, by faith from start to finish. As it is written, “The upright will live
by faith.”
For the righteous anger of God is revealed from heaven against every
form of godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth
with their wickedness,
because what can be known about God is evident to
them, since God has shown it to them.
For since the creation of the
world, His invisible attributes of everlasting power and divine nature are
clearly seen, because they can be perceived in the things He has made,
and so people have no excuse.
For even though they knew God, they did
not glorify Him as the God He is or thank Him, but their arguments turned into
stupidity, and their empty minds were filled with darkness.
They claimed to
be wise but became fools,
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for
images looking like mortal human beings, birds, animals, and reptiles.
In response, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to
dishonor their bodies among themselves.
They exchanged the truth of
God for the lie, and worshiped and served creatures rather than the
One who created them, who is blessed for all ages! Amen.
That is why God gave them over to vile passions. Their women exchanged
the natural sexual function for what is against nature.
In the same way the
men, leaving the natural function with women, burned with lust for each
other. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and as a result they
received in themselves the just penalty of their error.
Because they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them over
to a reprobate mind, to do things that should not be done.
They are filled
with every form of unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, and evil. They are
full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and hatred. They are gossips,
slanderers,
haters of God, insolent, arrogant and boastful. They are inventors of new
forms of evil. They dishonor their parents.
They are without understanding.
They are promise-breakers, unloving, and unmerciful.
Though they
know well God’s sentence — that those who practice these things deserve to
die — they not only do them, but fully approve
others who practice
them.
Romans