1Greetings from Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus. God called me to be an apostle.
2God promised long ago to give this Good News to his people. God used his prophets
3The Good News is about God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. As a person, he was born from the family of David.
4(1:3)
5Through Christ, God gave me the special work of an apostle.
6And you people in Rome were also called to belong to Jesus Christ.
7This letter is to all of you in Rome that God has called to be his holy people.
A Prayer of Thanks
8First I want to say that I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you. I thank God because people everywhere in the world are talking about your great faith.
9Every time I pray I always remember you. God knows this is true. God is the One I worship (serve) in my spirit by telling people the Good News
10(1:9)
11I want very much to see you. I want to give you some spiritual gift to make you strong.
12I mean that I want us to help each other with the faith that we have. Your faith will help me, and my faith will help you.
13Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that I planned many times to come to you. But I have not been allowed to come to you. I wanted to come so that I could help you grow spiritually. I want to help you like I have helped the other non-Jewish people.
14I must serve all people—Greeks and non-Greeks, wise people and foolish people.
15That is why I want so much to tell the Good News
16I am proud of the Good News. The Good News is the power God uses to save every person that believes—to save the Jews first, and also to save the non-Jews.
17The Good News shows how God makes people right with himself. God’s way of making people right begins and ends with faith. Like the Scripture
All People Have Done Wrong
18God shows his anger from heaven against all the evil and wrong things that people do. They have the truth, but by their evil lives they hide it.
19God shows his anger, because everything that is known about God has been made clear to them. Yes, God has clearly shown people everything that is known about him.
“The person … forever” Quote from Hab. 2:4.
20There are things about God that people cannot see—his eternal power and all the things that make him God. But since the beginning of the world those things have been easy for people to understand. Those things are made clear in the things that God has made. So people have no excuse for the bad things they do.
21People knew God. But they did not give glory to God, and they did not thank him. Their ideas were all useless. There was not one good thought left in their foolish minds.
22People said they were wise, and they became fools.
23They gave up the glory of God who lives forever. People traded that glory for the worship of idols
24People were full of sin, wanting only to do evil things. So God left them and let them go their sinful way. And so they became full of sexual sins, using their bodies wrongly with each other.
25Those people traded the truth of God for a lie. Those people worshiped and served things that were made. But people did not worship and serve the God who made those things. God should be praised forever. Amen.
26Because people did those things, God left them and let them do the shameful things they wanted to do. Women stopped having natural sex with men. They started having sex with other women.
27In the same way, men stopped having natural sex with women. The men began wanting each other all the time. Men did shameful things with other men. And in their bodies they received the punishment for those wrong things they did.
28People did not think it was important to have a true knowledge of God. So God left them and allowed those people to have their own worthless thinking. And so those people do the things that they should not do.
29Those people are filled with every kind of sin, evil, greed, and hatred. Those people are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, lying, and thinking the worst things about each other. Those people gossip
30and say evil things about each other. Those people hate God. They are rude and conceited and boast about themselves. Those people invent ways of doing evil. They don’t obey their parents,
31they are foolish, they don’t keep their promises, and they show no kindness or mercy to other people.
32Those people know God’s law. They know God’s law says that people who live like that should die. But they continue to do those wrong things. And they say that people who do those things are doing right.