Romans 1

¹ Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God—

² the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,

³ concerning his Son, who was born of David's line according to the flesh

⁴ and was appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead—Jesus Christ our Lord.

⁵ Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the nations to the obedience that comes from faith, for the sake of his name.

⁶ And you also are among those called to belong to Jesus Christ.

⁷ To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁸ First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.

⁹ God, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you

¹⁰ in my prayers at all times; and I ask that now at last by God's will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

¹¹ For I long to see you, so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—

¹² that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.

¹³ I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I have often planned to come to you (but have been prevented until now), so that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other nations.

¹⁴ I am obligated both to Greeks and to non-Greeks, both to the wise and to the foolish.

¹⁵ That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Greek.

¹⁷ For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

¹⁸ For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

¹⁹ since what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

²⁰ For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools,

²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies were dishonored among themselves.

²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

²⁶ For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature,

²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, he gave them over to a worthless mind, to do what should not be done.

²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and ill will. They are gossips,

³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;

³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

³² Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them.