12. What I mean is that we may be encouraged by each other’s faith.
13. I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that I often planned to visit you. However, until now I have been kept from doing so. What I want is to enjoy some of the results of working among you as I have also enjoyed the results of working among the rest of the nations.
14. I have an obligation to those who are civilized and those who aren’t, to those who are wise and those who aren’t.
15. That’s why I’m eager to tell you who live in Rome the Good News also.
16. I’m not ashamed of the Good News. It is God’s power to save everyone who believes, Jews first and Greeks as well.
17. God’s approval is revealed in this Good News. This approval begins and ends with faith as Scripture says, “The person who has God’s approval will live by faith.”
18. God’s anger is revealed from heaven against every ungodly and immoral thing people do as they try to suppress the truth by their immoral living.
19. What can be known about God is clear to them because he has made it clear to them.
20. From the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly observed in what he made. As a result, people have no excuse.
21. They knew God but did not praise and thank him for being God. Instead, their thoughts were pointless, and their misguided minds were plunged into darkness.
22. While claiming to be wise, they became fools.
23. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for statues that looked like mortal humans, birds, animals, and snakes.
24. For this reason God allowed their lusts to control them. As a result, they dishonor their bodies by sexual perversion with each other.