RomansChapter 1

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¹This letter is from Paul. I am a servant of Christ Jesus. God called me to be an apostle. He set me apart to share the good news of God. ²God promised this good news long ago. He promised it through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. ³The good news is about his Son. As a man, his Son came from the family of David. ⁴Through the Spirit of holiness, he was shown with power to be the Son of God. This was shown when he rose from the dead. He is Jesus Christ our Lord. ⁵Through him and for the sake of his name, we were given grace and made apostles. We are sent to call people from all the Gentiles to obey God. This obeying comes from faith. ⁶And you are among those called to belong to Jesus Christ. ⁷I am writing to all of you in Rome whom God loves. He has called you to be God's people. May grace and peace be yours from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. ⁸First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because people all over the world are talking about your faith. ⁹I serve God with all my spirit by preaching the good news about his Son. God knows that I always remember you. He is my witness. ¹⁰I always pray for you. And I ask that now at last, if God wants it, I may finally be able to come to you. ¹¹I really want to see you. I want to give you some gift from the Spirit to make you strong. ¹²What I mean is this. I want us to encourage each other by the faith we share. Your faith will help me, and my faith will help you. ¹³Brothers and sisters, I want you to know something. Many times I planned to come to you. But until now I have been kept from coming. I wanted to see a harvest among you. I have seen this harvest among the other Gentiles. ¹⁴I have a duty to everyone. I owe it to Greeks and to those who are not Greeks. I owe it to the wise and to the foolish. ¹⁵That's why I want so much to preach the good news to you in Rome too. ¹⁶I am not ashamed of the good news. It is God's power to save everyone who believes. It is first for the Jew, and then for the Greek. ¹⁷The good news shows how God makes people right with him. It is by faith from start to finish. As it is written, "The one who is right with God will live by faith." ¹⁸God's anger is being shown from heaven. It is against all the godless and wicked things people do. By their wicked ways they hold back the truth. ¹⁹What can be known about God is plain to them, because God himself has made it plain to them. ²⁰Since God made the world, people have clearly seen what he is like. No one can see him. But they can see his eternal power and that he is God. They can understand this from the things he made. So people have no excuse. ²¹They knew God. But they did not honor him as God. They did not thank him. Instead, their thinking became useless. Their foolish hearts were filled with darkness. ²²They said they were wise, but they became fools. ²³They traded the glory of God, who lives forever, for idols. These idols looked like people, who die. They also looked like birds, animals, and reptiles. ²⁴So God gave them over to the desires of their hearts. He gave them over to impure things. So they brought shame on their bodies with one another. ²⁵They traded the truth of God for a lie. They worshiped and served created things instead of the Creator. He is worthy of praise forever! Amen. ²⁶That is why God gave them over to shameful desires. Even their women traded natural sexual relations for ones that are not natural. ²⁷In the same way, the men gave up natural relations with women. They burned with desire for one another. Men did shameful acts with other men. And in their own bodies they received the punishment they deserved for their wrong. ²⁸They did not think it was worth it to know God. So God gave them up to twisted minds. They do things that should not be done. ²⁹They are filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and sin. They are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, lies, and hate. They gossip. ³⁰They tell lies about others. They hate God. They are rude, proud, and boastful. They think up new ways to do evil. They don't obey their parents. ³¹They have no sense. They can't be trusted. They have no love and no mercy. ³²They know God's fair law. It says that people who do these things deserve to die. Yet they keep on doing them. And they also cheer on others who do them.