through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,

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

Longing to Go to Rome

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

God's Wrath on Unrighteousness

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,

Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

God's Righteous Judgment

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.

Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?

God's Judgment and the Law

For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

No One Is Righteous

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,

All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well,

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

Death in Adam, Life in Christ

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.