Study Desk

They examined me and wanted to release me, because there was no basis for a death sentence against me.

So for this reason I have called to see you and speak with you. It is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain."

For this people's heart has grown callous; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.'

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, and set apart for the gospel of God,

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed all over the world.

For I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you,

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek.

For the gospel reveals the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.

and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen.

For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on another. For on whatever grounds you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow wickedness, there will be wrath and anger.

There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew, then for the Greek;