Romans 1
1
1I, Paul, am a devoted slave of Jesus Christ on assignment, authorized as an apostle to proclaim God’s words and acts. I write this letter to all the believers in Rome, God’s friends.
2-7The sacred writings contain preliminary reports by the prophets on God’s Son. His descent from David roots him in history; his unique identity as Son of God was shown by the Spirit when Jesus was raised from the dead, setting him apart as the Messiah, our Master. Through him we received both the generous gift of his life and the urgent task of passing it on to others who receive it by entering into obedient trust in Jesus. You are who you are through this gift and call of Jesus Christ! And I greet you now with all the generosity of God our Father and our Master Jesus, the Messiah.
8-12I thank God through Jesus for every one of you. That’s first. People everywhere keep telling me about your lives of faith, and every time I hear them, I thank him. And God, whom I so love to worship and serve by spreading the good news of his Son—the Message!—knows that every time I think of you in my prayers, which is practically all the time, I ask him to clear the way for me to come and see you. The longer this waiting goes on, the deeper the ache. I so want to be there to deliver God’s gift in person and watch you grow stronger right before my eyes! But don’t think I’m not expecting to get something out of this, too! You have as much to give me as I do to you.
13-15Please don’t misinterpret my failure to visit you, friends. You have no idea how many times I’ve made plans for Rome. I’ve been determined to get some personal enjoyment out of God’s work among you, as I have in so many other non-Jewish towns and communities. But something has always come up and prevented it. Everyone I meet—it matters little whether they’re mannered or rude, smart or simple—deepens my sense of interdependence and obligation. And that’s why I can’t wait to get to you in Rome, preaching this wonderful good news of God.
16-17It’s news I’m most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else! God’s way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: “The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives.”
Ignoring God Leads to a Downward Spiral
18-23But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.
24-25So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!
26-27Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.
28-32Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Romans 1
1
Romans 1
1¶ Paul, slave of Jesus, the Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God
2(which he had promised before by his prophets in the holy scriptures)
3of his Son (who was born unto him of the seed of David according to the flesh,
4who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection from the dead), of Jesus, the Christ, our Lord.
5By whom we have received the grace and the apostleship, to cause the faith to be obeyed among all the Gentiles in his name,
6among whom ye are also the called of Jesus Christ;
7to all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints; ye have grace and peace of God our Father and of the Lord Jesus, the Christ.
8¶ First, I thank my God through Jesus, the Christ, regarding you all, that your faith is preached in all the world.
9For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I always remember you in my prayers,
10making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.
11For I long to see you that I may impart with you some spiritual gift to confirm you,
12that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.
13Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that many times I purposed to come unto you (but up until now I have been unable) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
14I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; both to the wise and to the unwise.
15So, as much as in me is, I am ready to announce the gospel to you that are at Rome also.
16¶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel of the Christ; for it is the power of God to give saving health to every one that believes: to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
17For in him is the righteousness of God 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 ungodliness and injustice of men, who hold back the truth with injustice;
19¶ because that which is known of God is manifest to them; for God has showed it unto them.
20For the invisible things of him, his eternal power and divinity, are clearly understood by the creation of the world and by the things that are made so that there is no excuse;
21because having known God, they did not glorify him as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools
23and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and of fourfooted beasts and of serpents.
24Therefore God also gave them over to the lusts of their own hearts for uncleanness, to contaminate their own bodies between themselves,
25who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for all ages. Amen.
26For this cause God gave them up unto shameful affections, for even their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature;
27and likewise also the males, leaving the natural use of the females, burned in their lust one toward another, males with males committing nefarious works and receiving in themselves the recompense that proceeded from their error.
28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a perverse understanding, to do those things which are not convenient,
29being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, without mercy.
32Who having understood the righteousness of God, they did not understand that those who do such things are worthy of death, not only those that do the same, but even those who encourage those that do them.
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The Jubilee Bible 2000 (JUB) by Ransom Press International