1
“To: All You Believers in Rome”
1 From: Paul, a slave of Messiah Jesus, summoned and commissioned as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God—
2 the gospel he promised ahead of time through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures
3 concerning his Son, who sprang from the seed of David according to his human descent,
4 who was appointed “Son of God”+ in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, at his resurrection from the dead—Jesus the Messiah, our Lord,
5 through whom we have received the gift of apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the honor of his name,
6 among whom ᵖyou,+ too, have been summoned by Jesus the Messiah.
7 To: All you believers in Rome, loved by God, summoned to belong specially and exclusively to him as holy.
To all of ᵖyou grace, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus the Messiah.
“I’m Not Ashamed of the Gospel”
8 Let me begin by giving thanks to my God through Jesus the Messiah for all of you, because your faith is being talked about all over the world.
9 Indeed, God is my witness—the God to whom I render priestly service in my spirit with regard to the gospel about his Son—that I bring you before him continually,
10 on every occasion in my prayers asking him to please make a way, if it is his will, for me to finally come and visit you.
11 Yes, I’m very eager to meet you in person, so that I may impart to you, for your strengthening, some gift of the Spirit;
12 or, to put it more accurately, so that we may be mutually strengthened and encouraged by one another’s faith, both yours and mine.
13 Now I want to make sure you know, brothers and sisters, that I’ve had it in my mind many times to visit you (but have been prevented from doing so up to the present time), in the hope that I will see among you, too, just as I have seen among Gentiles in other parts of the world, fruitful results.
14 It is to both the cultured and the unrefined, to both the wise and the unsophisticated alike, that I am bound by duty.
15 That is why I am so eager to proclaim the gospel, too, to you who live in Rome.
16 I’m not ashamed of the gospel, you see, because it is the very power of God, saving all who place their faith in him—Jews first, and also Gentiles.
17 Indeed, revealed in the gospel is the very righteousness of God, by faith for faith. Just as it is written: “As for the righteous one, it is by faith that he will have life.”+
“The Wrath of God Is Revealed”
18 The wrath of God is revealed from heaven, you see, against every kind of godlessness and wickedness perpetrated by the human race, which takes the truth and, in its wickedness, suppresses it.
19 What else are we to conclude, given that knowledge about God is displayed before people’s eyes so very clearly and openly? Given the fact that it was God himself who put this knowledge on open display for them?
20 God’s invisible attributes, you see, being pondered through his works since the very creation of the world, are readily perceived—both his eternal power and his divine nature—so that people are without excuse.
21 What else are we to conclude, given how, despite people’s knowledge about God, they refused to give him the honor and thanks due him as God? Instead, they were yielded over to the enslaving and tyrannical power of worthless and deluded thoughts, and their hearts and minds, so stubborn and unable to discern right from wrong, were plunged into darkness.
22 Making themselves out to be “wise,” they became fools
23 and exchanged the glory of God immortal for idols made to look like mortal man and birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
24 That is why God chose to surrender them over to the enslaving and tyrannical power of the filthy and immoral things their hearts yearned to do, shameful things with each other’s bodies.
25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever into the ages. Amen.
26 That is the reason why God chose to surrender them over to the enslaving and tyrannical power of shameful passions. Indeed, the women exchanged normal sexual relations for those contrary to the created order,
27 and the men, likewise, having forsaken sexual relations with women, burned with lust for one another, men doing disgraceful things with other men and as a result receiving in their own persons the punishment they deserved for their perversion.
28 And since they deemed it worthless to recognize God as what he truly is, God chose to surrender them over to the enslaving and tyrannical power of a mind deemed by him as worthless and corrupt, to do things that should never be done.
29 To this day they are filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, always coming up with new ways to do what is evil, disobedient to parents.
31 They can’t discern right from wrong, they don’t keep their promises, they have no regard for others, they are devoid of mercy.
32 Although they have accurate knowledge of God’s righteous decree, namely, that those who live their lives in this way deserve death, they not only continue to do such things, but also applaud others who do the same.