Romans 1

₁I, Paul, am writing this letter to you. I am a servant of Christ Jesus. Christ has chosen me to be an apostle and He gave me the work to preach the Good_News of God. ₂Long ago God told the prophets they must write down in the Old_Testament that He had promised to give the people Good_News ₃about his Son. His Son became Man. He was the descendant of King David. ₄The Son died, but God raised Him and made him live again. That is why the Holy_Spirit said Christ is the Son of God who can do anything. Yes, He is Jesus Christ our Lord. ₅Christ gave his grace to me and He chose me to be an apostle. He told me to tell all the nations about Him so that they can obey Him because they believe in Him and so that everyone will know who Christ is and believe in him. ₆You also believe in Jesus Christ. He has chosen you to belong to Him.

₇I write this letter to all of you in the city of Rome. God loves you, and He has chosen you to belong to Him.

I pray that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will be good and gracious to you and that He will give you peace.

₈First I want to thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because people all over the world are talking about your faith. ₉I serve God with all my heart and I tell the Good_News about the Son of God to people. I always think of you. God knows it is true. ₁₀Every time I pray, I ask God if He will let me come to you. ₁₁I want to come to you. I want to give you a gift of the Holy_Spirit so that your faith can become stronger. ₁₂Then you will make my faith stronger and I will make your faith stronger. ₁₃Friends, it is important that you know how many times I have wanted to come to you, but every time something has happened so that I could not come. I want to come to you because I want to help people believe in Christ, as I have done in many other places.

₁₄I must tell the message to all people, to Greeks and to people who are not Greeks, to people who are wise and to people who are foolish. ₁₅This is why I also want to preach the Good_News to the people in the city of Rome.

₁₆I am not ashamed to tell people about the Good_News. This message is the power of God. It saves everyone who believes, first the Jews and also the people who are not Jews. ₁₇The Good_News shows how God makes people right with Himself. It shows that He makes people righteous because they believe and only because they believe. This is written in the Old_Testament:

₁₈God in heaven punishes all people who do not listen to Him and people who always do what is wrong. Everyone can see how God punishes them. God punishes them because they do not like the truth and they do not want to listen to it. They close their eyes to the truth. That is what they do when they do all these wrong things. ₁₉They know the things that people can learn about God, because God has shown these things to them. ₂₀There are things about God that people can not see, like his power that He will never stop having, and all the things that make Him God. But from the beginning when God made the world, people have understood who He is and that He is always strong and that He is God. They should know it because they can see what He has done. That is why they can not say they do not know about God. ₂₁They knew God, but they did not honour or thank Him. They are foolish because they don't do what God wants. They understand nothing. They are like people who live in the dark. ₂₂They think they are clever but they don't do what God wants. ₂₃God is King, and He will never die, but these sinful people do not serve Him. They choose to serve_idols, images that look like people, people who die, or images that look like animals or birds or snakes.

₂₄That is why God left them and let them do the bad things that they want to do, things that show that they do not respect each other's bodies. ₂₅They do not believe the truth of God. They choose to believe their own lies. It was God who made everything, but they worship and serve the things that He has made. They do not worship God. We must always praise Him. Amen.

₂₆That is why God leaves them so that they can do the immoral things they want to do. Their women have sex with other women, something that they may not do. ₂₇The men are also doing wrong. They have stopped having sex with women and they want to have sex with other men. Then they do sinful things with each other that people should be ashamed of. So they turn away from God. God is right when He punishes them for doing these things with each other.

₂₈These people do not want to know God and serve Him. That is why God leaves them so they can think and do bad things that people should not do. ₂₉They always want to do all kinds of wrong things. They are bad. They want to have everything that they see and they like doing bad things. They are jealous, they kill other people, they fight and argue with one another, they cheat each other and they love doing sinful things. They say things about other people that they should not say. ₃₀They say bad things about them. They hate God, they are proud, they think they are very good and they like to boast. They always think of new bad things to do. They do not listen to their parents. ₃₁They do foolish things. You can not trust them. They do not love other people, and they do not feel sorry for anyone. ₃₂They know that God's laws say that He will punish people who do these things that are wrong, and He will cause them to die. But they keep on doing these things that are wrong and they also say it is good when other people do these bad things.