12. That is to say, we would be encouraged together by one another’s faithfulness—both yours and mine.
13. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that many times I planned to come to you (though I was prevented until now)—so I might have some fruit among you also, just as I have among the rest of the nations.
14. I have an obligation to both Greeks and barbarians, to both the wise and the foolish.
15. So I am eager to proclaim the Good News also to you who are in Rome.
16. For I am not ashamed of the Good News, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who trusts—to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
17. In it the righteousness of God is revealed, from trust to trust. As it is written, “But the righteous shall live by emunah.”
18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. In unrighteousness they suppress the truth,
19. because what can be known about God is plain to them—for God has shown it to them.
20. His invisible attributes—His eternal power and His divine nature—have been clearly seen ever since the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made. So people are without excuse—
21. for even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. Instead, their thinking became futile, and their senseless hearts were made dark.
22. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.
23. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image in the form of mortal man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.
24. Therefore God gave them over in the evil desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies with one another.
25. They traded the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26. For this reason God gave them up to shameful passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for what is against nature.