Study Desk

To: All those in Rome whom God loves, who have been called, who have been set apart for him: Grace to you and shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.

First, I thank my God through Yeshua the Messiah for all of you, because the report of your trust is spreading throughout the whole world.

For God, whom I serve in my spirit by spreading the Good News about his Son, is my witness that I regularly remember you

For in it is revealed how God makes people righteous in his sight; and from beginning to end it is through trust — as the Tanakh puts it, "But the person who is righteous will live his life by trust."

because what is known about God is plain to them, since God has made it plain to them.

because, although they know who God is, they do not glorify him as God or thank him. On the contrary, they have become futile in their thinking; and their undiscerning hearts have become darkened.

In fact, they have exchanged the glory of the immortal God for mere images, like a mortal human being, or like birds, animals or reptiles!

This is why God has given them up to the vileness of their hearts' lusts, to the shameful misuse of each other's bodies.

They have exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, by worshipping and serving created things, rather than the Creator — praised be he for ever. Amen.

This is why God has given them up to degrading passions; so that their women exchange natural sexual relations for unnatural;

In other words, since they have not considered God worth knowing, God has given them up to worthless ways of thinking; so that they do improper things.

slanderers, haters of God; they are insolent, arrogant and boastful; they plan evil schemes; they disobey their parents;

do you think that you, a mere man passing judgment on others who do such things, yet doing them yourself, will escape the judgment of God?

For God does not show favoritism.

For it is not merely the hearers of Torah whom God considers righteous; rather, it is the doers of what Torah says who will be made righteous in God's sight.

on a day when God passes judgment on people's inmost secrets. (According to the Good News as I proclaim it, he does this through the Messiah Yeshua.)

But if you call yourself a Jew and rest on Torah and boast about God

You who take such pride in Torah, do you, by disobeying the Torah, dishonor God? —

On the contrary, the real Jew is one inwardly; and true circumcision is of the heart, spiritual not literal; so that his praise comes not from other people but from God.

Much in every way! In the first place, the Jews were entrusted with the very words of God.