Introducing Paul and His Message
1 Paul, a slave of Messiah Yeshua, called to be an emissary and set apart for the Good News of God, 2 which He announced beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
3 Concerning His Son,
He came into being
from the seed of David
according to the flesh.
4 He was appointed
Ben-Elohim
in power
according to the Ruach of holiness,
by the resurrection from the dead.
He is Messiah Yeshua our Lord.
5 Through Him we have received grace and the office of emissary, to bring about obedience of faith among all the nations on behalf of His name. 6 And you also are called to Yeshua the Messiah.
7 To all those in Rome, loved by God, called to be kedoshim:
Grace to you and shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah!
Eager to Visit
8 First, I thank my God through Messiah Yeshua for all of you, because your faithfulness is made known throughout the whole world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Good News of His Son. How unceasingly I make mention of you, 10 always pleading in my prayers, if somehow by God’s will now at last I will be granted a good journey to come to you. 11 For I long to see you, so I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. 12 That is to say, we would be encouraged together by one another’s faithfulness—both yours and mine.
13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,[a] that many times I planned to come to you (though I was prevented until now)—so I might have some fruit among you also, just as I have among the rest of the nations. 14 I have an obligation to both Greeks and barbarians, to both the wise and the foolish. 15 So I am eager to proclaim the Good News also to you who are in Rome.
The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
16 For I am not ashamed of the Good News, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who trusts—to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 In it the righteousness of God is revealed, from trust to trust.[b] As it is written, “But the righteous shall live by emunah.”[c]
Yet All Are Guilty
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. In unrighteousness they suppress the truth, 19 because what can be known about God is plain to them—for God has shown it to them. 20 His invisible attributes—His eternal power and His divine nature—have been clearly seen ever since the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made.[d] So people are without excuse— 21 for even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. Instead, their thinking became futile, and their senseless hearts were made dark. [e] 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools. 23 They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image in the form of mortal man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.[f]
24 Therefore God gave them over in the evil desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies with one another. 25 They traded the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to shameful passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for what is against nature. 27 Likewise the men abandoned natural relations with women and were burning with passion toward one another—men committing shameful acts with other men[g] and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And just as they did not see fit to recognize God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what is not fitting. 29 They became filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents. 31 They are foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree—that those who practice such things deserve death—they not only do them but also approve of others who practice the same.
Footnotes
- Romans 1:13 Lit. brothers (in Messiah’s community).
- Romans 1:17 Or from trusting-faith to trusting-faith.
- Romans 1:17 Grk. pistis; cf. Hab. 2:4(2:4 LXX).
- Romans 1:20 cf. Ps. 19:1-6; Jer. 5:21-22.
- Romans 1:22 cf. 2 King. 17:15; Isa. 59:1-15; Jer. 2:5; Ps. 14:1-3.
- Romans 1:23 cf. Deut. 4:16-18.
- Romans 1:27 cf. Lev. 18:22; 20:13.