¹ From Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle,

² set apart for the service of the gospel that God promised long ago through his prophets in the holy scriptures.

³ This is the gospel concerning his Son who, in terms of human nature

⁴ was born a descendant of David and who, in terms of the Spirit and of holiness, was designated Son of God in power by resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ, our Lord,

⁵ through whom we have received grace and our apostolic mission of winning the obedience of faith among all the nations for the honour of his name.

⁶ You are among these, and by his call you belong to Jesus Christ.

⁷ To you all, God's beloved in Rome, called to be his holy people. Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁸ First I give thanks to my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is talked of all over the world.

⁹ God, whom I serve with my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness that I continually mention you in my prayers,

¹⁰ asking always that by some means I may at long last be enabled to visit you, if it is God's will.

¹¹ For I am longing to see you so that I can convey to you some spiritual gift that will be a lasting strength,

¹² or rather that we may be strengthened together through our mutual faith, yours and mine.

¹³ I want you to be quite certain too, brothers, that I have often planned to visit you -- though up to the present I have always been prevented -- in the hope that I might work as fruitfully among you as I have among the gentiles elsewhere.

¹⁴ I have an obligation to Greeks as well as barbarians, to the educated as well as the ignorant,

¹⁵ and hence the eagerness on my part to preach the gospel to you in Rome too.

¹⁶ For I see no reason to be ashamed of the gospel; it is God's power for the salvation of everyone who has faith -- Jews first, but Greeks as well-

¹⁷ for in it is revealed the saving justice of God: a justice based on faith and addressed to faith. As it says in scripture: Anyone who is upright through faith will live.

¹⁸ The retribution of God from heaven is being revealed against the ungodliness and injustice of human beings who in their injustice hold back the truth.

¹⁹ For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them, since God has made it plain to them:

²⁰ ever since the creation of the world, the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind's understanding of created things. And so these people have no excuse:

²¹ they knew God and yet they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but their arguments became futile and their uncomprehending minds were darkened.

²² While they claimed to be wise, in fact they were growing so stupid

²³ that they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an imitation, for the image of a mortal human being, or of birds, or animals, or crawling things.

²⁴ That is why God abandoned them in their inmost cravings to filthy practices of dishonouring their own bodies-

²⁵ because they exchanged God's truth for a lie and have worshipped and served the creature instead of the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

²⁶ That is why God abandoned them to degrading passions:

²⁷ why their women have exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural practices; and the men, in a similar fashion, too, giving up normal relations with women, are consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameful things with men and receiving in themselves due reward for their perversion.

²⁸ In other words, since they would not consent to acknowledge God, God abandoned them to their unacceptable thoughts and indecent behaviour.

²⁹ And so now they are steeped in all sorts of injustice, rottenness, greed and malice; full of envy, murder, wrangling, treachery and spite,

³⁰ libellers, slanderers, enemies of God, rude, arrogant and boastful, enterprising in evil, rebellious to parents,

³¹ without brains, honour, love or pity.

³² They are well aware of God's ordinance: that those who behave like this deserve to die -- yet they not only do it, but even applaud others who do the same.