4. God has been very kind to you, and he has been patient with you. God has been waiting for you to change. But you think nothing of his kindness. Perhaps you do not understand that God is kind to you so that you will change your hearts and lives.
5. But you are hard and stubborn and refuse to change. So you are making your own punishment greater and greater on the day God shows his anger. On that day all people will see God’s right judgments.
6. God will reward or punish every person for what he has done.
7. Some people live for God’s glory, for honor, and for life that has no end. They live for those things by always continuing to do good. God will give life forever to them.
8. But other people are selfish and refuse to follow truth. They follow evil. God will give them his punishment and anger.
9. He will give trouble and suffering to everyone who does evil—to the Jews first and also to the non-Jews.
10. But God will give glory, honor, and peace to everyone who does good—to the Jews first and also to the non-Jews.
11. For God judges all people in the same way.
12. People who have God’s law and those who have never heard of the law are all the same when they sin. Those who do not have the law and are sinners will be lost. And, in the same way, people who have the law and are sinners will be judged by the law.
13. Hearing the law does not make people right with God. The law makes people right with God only if they obey what the law says.
14. (The non-Jews do not have the law. But when they freely do things that the law commands, then they are the law for themselves. This is true even though they do not have the law.
15. They show that in their hearts they know what is right and wrong, just as the law commands. And they also show this by the way they feel about right and wrong. Sometimes their thoughts tell them they did wrong. And sometimes their thoughts tell them they did right.)
16. All these things will happen on the day when God will judge the secret thoughts of people’s hearts. The Good News that I preach says that God will judge everyone through Christ Jesus.
17. What about you? You call yourself a Jew. You trust in the law of Moses and brag that you are close to God.
18. You know what God wants you to do. And you know the things that are important because you have learned the law.