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³ By their wickedness they make the king glad,
   and the officials by their treachery.
⁴ They are all adulterers;
   they are like a heated oven,
whose baker does not need to stir the fire,
   from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.
⁵ On the day of our king the officials
   became sick with the heat of wine;
   he stretched out his hand with mockers.
⁶ For they are kindled^* like an oven, their heart burns within them;
   all night their anger smoulders;
   in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
⁷ All of them are hot as an oven,
   and they devour their rulers.
All their kings have fallen;
   none of them calls upon me.

⁸ Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples;
   Ephraim is a cake not turned.
⁹ Foreigners devour his strength,
   but he does not know it;
grey hairs are sprinkled upon him,
   but he does not know it.
¹⁰ Israel’s pride testifies against^* him;
   yet they do not return to the Lord their God,
   or seek him, for all this.

Futile Reliance on the Nations

¹¹ Ephraim has become like a dove,
   silly and without sense;
   they call upon Egypt, they go to Assyria.
¹² As they go, I will cast my net over them;
   I will bring them down like birds of the air;
   I will discipline them according to the report made to their assembly.^*

THE LETTER OF PAUL TO THE

Romans

Salutation

1Paul, a servant^* of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, ²which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, ³the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh ⁴and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit^* of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, ⁵through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, ⁶including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,

7 To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world. ⁹For God, whom I serve with my spirit by announcing the gospel^* of his Son, is my witness that without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers, ¹⁰asking that by God’s will I may somehow at last succeed in coming to you. ¹¹For I am longing to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— ¹²or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. ¹³I want you to know, brothers and sisters,^* that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as I have among the rest of the Gentiles. ¹⁴I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish ¹⁵— hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

The Power of the Gospel

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’^*

¹⁶Others, to test him, kept demanding from him a sign from heaven.

True Blessedness

27 While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ ²⁸But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’

The Sign of Jonah

29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. ³⁰For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. ³¹The queen of the South will rise at the judgement with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! ³²The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!