Romans 1

1 ¹Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of our Father, ²the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, ³concerning his Son, who in his earthly life was descended from David, ⁴and was declared to be the Son of our Father in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead — Jesus Christ our Lord. ⁵Through him we received grace and apostleship for the obedience of faith among all the nations, for his name's sake, ⁶and you also are among those called to belong to Jesus Christ. ⁷To all in Rome, loved by our Father and called his holy people: Grace to you and peace from our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Eager to Bring the Gospel

⁸First, I thank my Father through Jesus Christ for all of you, since your faith is reported worldwide. ⁹For our Father is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that I constantly remember you in my prayers, ¹⁰asking that somehow by our Father's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. ¹¹For I long to see you, to share a spiritual gift that strengthens you, ¹²that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.

¹³I want you to know, brothers and sisters: I often planned to visit you, but was kept from it until now — to reap some harvest among you too, as among the rest of the nations. ¹⁴I'm obligated to Greeks and non-Greeks, to wise and foolish. ¹⁵So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

¹⁶I'm not ashamed of the gospel — it is our Father's power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also the Greek.

¹⁷For in it our Father's righteousness is revealed, from faith to faith, as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." ^a a v17 "From faith to faith": the gospel is powered by faith all the way through — from first to last.

Our Father's Wrath Against Sin

¹⁸For our Father's wrath is revealed from heaven against all human godlessness and injustice, people who suppress the truth by injustice. ¹⁹What can be known about our Father is evident to them, for he has made it evident to them. ²⁰Since the world's creation, his invisible qualities — eternal power and divine nature — are clearly seen, understood from what he made. So they have no excuse. ²¹Though they knew our Father, they didn't honor him as God or thank him — instead their thinking became empty, and their senseless hearts grew dark. ²²Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³and exchanged our immortal Father's glory for images shaped like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. ²⁴So our Father gave them over to their hearts' desires, to impurity, dishonoring their bodies among themselves, ²⁵because they traded the truth about our Father for a lie, worshiping and serving the creation instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

²⁶Because of this, our Father gave them over to shameful desires. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷Likewise, men too abandoned natural relations with women, burning with lust for each other—men committing indecency with men, and receiving in themselves the penalty their error deserved. ²⁸Since they refused to keep our Father in their knowledge, he handed them over to an unfit mind, to do improper things. ²⁹They were filled with all injustice, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, conflict, deceit, and spite; they are gossips, ³⁰slanderers, haters of our Father, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to their parents, ³¹foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³²Though they know our Father's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only do them but applaud those who do them.