1Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God,
2(the gospel he promised long ago through his prophets in the holy scriptures,)
3the gospel about his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. As to his human birth, he came from the family of David.
4And by the spirit of holiness he was declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead.
5Through him we have received grace, and the work of an apostle, so that people of all nations may obey the faith, for the sake of his name.
6You also are among them, called to belong to Jesus Christ.
7I write to all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
8First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is talked about all over the world.
9God is my witness, the God I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that I never stop speaking of you in my prayers.
10I keep asking that somehow, at last, if God is willing, I may have a good journey and come to you.
11For I long to see you, so that I may give you some spiritual gift, to make you strong;
12that is, so that you and I may be comforted together by the faith we share.
13Brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be unaware that I have often planned to come to you (but until now I have been kept from it), so that I might have some fruit among you also, as I have among the other Gentiles.
14I am in debt both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
15So, as far as I am able, I am ready to preach the gospel to you in Rome as well.
16For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
17For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed, from faith to faith. As it is written, "The just shall live by faith."
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who hold back the truth by unrighteousness.
19For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20Ever since the world was created, the things about him that cannot be seen have been clearly seen. They are understood from the things he has made, even his eternal power and his divine nature. So they have no excuse.
21For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, and they were not thankful. Instead their thinking became empty, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22Claiming to be wise, they became fools.
23They exchanged the glory of the God who never decays for images shaped like a man who decays, and like birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things.
24So God also gave them up to uncleanness, following the lusts of their own hearts, so that they dishonoured their own bodies with one another.
25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie. They worshipped and served the created thing rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26For this reason God gave them up to shameful desires. Even their women exchanged the natural use of their bodies for what is against nature.
27In the same way the men also left the natural use of the woman and burned in their lust for one another. Men did shameful things with men, and received in themselves the payment their error deserved.
28And because they did not want to keep God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a worthless mind, to do the things that are not right.
29They are filled with all unrighteousness, sexual sin, wickedness, greed and spite. They are full of envy, murder, quarrelling, deceit and ill will. They are gossips,
30slanderers, haters of God, insulting, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31without understanding, breakers of covenant, without natural affection, unforgiving, without mercy.
32They know God's judgement, that those who do such things deserve death. Yet they not only do them, but are pleased with others who do them.