Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Romans 1
Greeting
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for God’s good news, which God promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who came from David’s offspring according to the flesh, and was appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead—Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him we received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of trust among all the nations for the sake of his name, including you who are also called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be holy ones: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul Wants to Visit Rome
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your trust is being proclaimed throughout the world. God, whom I serve in my spirit in the good news of his Son, is my witness that I constantly remember you, always asking in my prayers that somehow, at last, by God’s will, I may succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you so that I may share some spiritual gift with you to strengthen you— that is, so that we may be mutually encouraged among you through each other’s trust, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often planned to come to you—but have been prevented until now—so that I might have some fruit among you as I have among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to those called barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, as far as I am concerned, I am eager to announce the good news also to you who are in Rome.
God’s Righteousness Revealed in the Good News
For I am not ashamed of the good news. It is God’s power for salvation to everyone who trusts—to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it God’s righteousness is revealed from faithfulness to trust, as it is written, “The righteous one will live by trust.”
Humanity’s Exchange of God’s Glory
For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth through unrighteousness, because what can be known about God is evident among them, for God has made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks. Instead, their reasoning became futile, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible human beings, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
Therefore God gave them over, in the desires of their hearts, to impurity, so that their bodies were dishonored among them. They exchanged God’s truth for the lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for those contrary to nature, and in the same way the men also left natural sexual relations with women and burned in their desire for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due consequence of their error.
And because they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a corrupted mind to do what is not fitting. They were filled with every kind of unrighteousness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and maliciousness; they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, unfaithful, heartless, and merciless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them.