Romans 9:16

9:16 So then, ¹  it does not depend on human desire or exertion, ²  but on God who shows mercy.

Romans 3:5

3:5 But if our unrighteousness demonstrates ³  the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is he? ⁴  (I am speaking in human terms.) ⁵ 

Romans 6:19

6:19 (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) ⁶  For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Romans 9:5

9:5 To them belong the patriarchs, ⁷  and from them, ⁸  by human descent, ⁹  came the Christ, ¹⁰  who is God over all, blessed forever! ¹¹  Amen.

Romans 1:3

1:3 concerning his Son who was a descendant ¹²  of David with reference to the flesh, ¹³ 

Romans 2:9

2:9 There will be ¹⁴  affliction and distress on everyone ¹⁵  who does evil, on the Jew first and also the Greek, ¹⁶ 

Romans 4:1

The Illustration of Justification

4:1 What then shall we say that Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh, ¹⁷  has discovered regarding this matter? ¹⁸ 

Romans 9:20

9:20 But who indeed are you – a mere human being ¹⁹  – to talk back to God? ²⁰  Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?” ²¹ 

Romans 1:23

1:23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings ²²  or birds or four-footed animals ²³  or reptiles.

Romans 3:20

3:20 For no one is declared righteous before him ²⁴  by the works of the law, ²⁵  for through the law comes ²⁶  the knowledge of sin.

Romans 3:4

3:4 Absolutely not! Let God be proven true, and every human being ²⁷  shown up as a liar, ²⁸  just as it is written: “so that you will be justified ²⁹  in your words and will prevail when you are judged.” ³⁰ 

Romans 2:16

2:16 on the day when God will judge ³¹  the secrets of human hearts, ³²  according to my gospel ³³  through Christ Jesus.

Romans 14:18

14:18 For the one who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by people. ³⁴ 

Romans 4:18

4:18 Against hope Abraham ³⁵  believed ³⁶  in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations ³⁷  according to the pronouncement, ³⁸  “so will your descendants be.” ³⁹ 

Romans 5:12

The Amplification of Justification

5:12 So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people ⁴⁰  because ⁴¹  all sinned –

Romans 8:3

8:3 For God achieved what the law could not do because ⁴²  it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

[9:16]  ¹ sn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.

[9:16]  ² tn Grk “So then, [it does] not [depend] on the one who desires nor on the one who runs.”

[3:5]  ³ tn Or “shows clearly.”

[3:5]  ⁴ tn Grk “That God is not unjust to inflict wrath, is he?”

[3:5]  ⁵ sn The same expression occurs in Gal 3:15, and similar phrases in Rom 6:19 and 1 Cor 9:8.

[6:19]  ⁵ tn Or “because of your natural limitations” (NRSV).

[9:5]  ⁷ tn Grk “of whom are the fathers.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[9:5]  ⁸ tn Grk “from whom.” Here the relative pronoun has been replaced by a personal pronoun.

[9:5]  ⁹ tn Grk “according to the flesh.”

[9:5]  ¹⁰ tn Or “Messiah.” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed.”)

[9:5]  ¹¹ tn Or “the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever,” or “the Messiah. God who is over all be blessed forever!” or “the Messiah who is over all. God be blessed forever!” The translational difficulty here is not text-critical in nature, but is a problem of punctuation. Since the genre of these opening verses of Romans 9 is a lament, it is probably best to take this as an affirmation of Christ’s deity (as the text renders it). Although the other renderings are possible, to see a note of praise to God at the end of this section seems strangely out of place. But for Paul to bring his lament to a crescendo (that is to say, his kinsmen had rejected God come in the flesh), thereby deepening his anguish, is wholly appropriate. This is also supported grammatically and stylistically: The phrase ὁ ὢν (Jo wn, “the one who is”) is most naturally taken as a phrase which modifies something in the preceding context, and Paul’s doxologies are always closely tied to the preceding context. For a detailed examination of this verse, see B. M. Metzger, “The Punctuation of Rom. 9:5,” Christ and the Spirit in the New Testament, 95-112; and M. J. Harris, Jesus as God, 144-72.

[1:3]  ⁹ tn Grk “born of the seed” (an idiom).

[1:3]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “according to the flesh,” indicating Jesus’ earthly life, a reference to its weakness. This phrase implies that Jesus was more than human; otherwise it would have been sufficient to say that he was a descendant of David, cf. L. Morris, Romans, 44.

[2:9]  ¹¹ tn No verb is expressed in this verse, but the verb “to be” is implied by the Greek construction. Literally “suffering and distress on everyone…”

[2:9]  ¹² tn Grk “every soul of man.”

[2:9]  ¹³ sn Paul uses the term Greek here and in v. 10 to refer to non-Jews, i.e., Gentiles.

[4:1]  ¹³ tn Or “according to natural descent” (BDAG 916 s.v. σάρξ 4).

[4:1]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “has found?”

[9:20]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “O man.”

[9:20]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “On the contrary, O man, who are you to talk back to God?”

[9:20]  ¹⁷ sn A quotation from Isa 29:16; 45:9.

[1:23]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God in likeness of an image of corruptible man.” Here there is a wordplay on the Greek terms ἄφθαρτος (afqarto", “immortal, imperishable, incorruptible”) and φθαρτός (fqarto", “mortal, corruptible, subject to decay”).

[1:23]  ¹⁸ sn Possibly an allusion to Ps 106:19-20.

[3:20]  ¹⁹ sn An allusion to Ps 143:2.

[3:20]  ²⁰ tn Grk “because by the works of the law no flesh is justified before him.” Some recent scholars have understood the phrase ἒργα νόμου (erga nomou, “works of the law”) to refer not to obedience to the Mosaic law generally, but specifically to portions of the law that pertain to things like circumcision and dietary laws which set the Jewish people apart from the other nations (e.g., J. D. G. Dunn, Romans [WBC], 1:155). Other interpreters, like C. E. B. Cranfield (“‘The Works of the Law’ in the Epistle to the Romans,” JSNT 43 [1991]: 89-101) reject this narrow interpretation for a number of reasons, among which the most important are: (1) The second half of v. 20, “for through the law comes the knowledge of sin,” is hard to explain if the phrase “works of the law” is understood in a restricted sense; (2) the plural phrase “works of the law” would have to be understood in a different sense from the singular phrase “the work of the law” in 2:15; (3) similar phrases involving the law in Romans (2:13, 14; 2:25, 26, 27; 7:25; 8:4; and 13:8) which are naturally related to the phrase “works of the law” cannot be taken to refer to circumcision (in fact, in 2:25 circumcision is explicitly contrasted with keeping the law). Those interpreters who reject the “narrow” interpretation of “works of the law” understand the phrase to refer to obedience to the Mosaic law in general.

[3:20]  ²¹ tn Grk “is.”

[3:4]  ²¹ tn Grk “every man”; but ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used in a generic sense here to stress humanity rather than masculinity.

[3:4]  ²² tn Grk “Let God be true, and every man a liar.” The words “proven” and “shown up” are supplied in the translation to clarify the meaning.

[3:4]  ²³ tn Grk “might be justified,” a subjunctive verb, but in this type of clause it carries the same sense as the future indicative verb in the latter part. “Will” is more idiomatic in contemporary English.

[3:4]  ²⁴ tn Or “prevail when you judge.” A quotation from Ps 51:4.

[2:16]  ²³ tn The form of the Greek word is either present or future, but it is best to translate in future because of the context of future judgment.

[2:16]  ²⁴ tn Grk “of people.”

[2:16]  ²⁵ sn On my gospel cf. Rom 16:25; 2 Tim 2:8.

[14:18]  ²⁵ tn Grk “by men”; but ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is generic here (“people”) since the contrast in context is between God and humanity.

[4:18]  ²⁷ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:18]  ²⁸ tn Grk “who against hope believed,” referring to Abraham. The relative pronoun was converted to a personal pronoun and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[4:18]  ²⁹ sn A quotation from Gen 17:5.

[4:18]  ³⁰ tn Grk “according to that which had been spoken.”

[4:18]  ³¹ sn A quotation from Gen 15:5.

[5:12]  ²⁹ tn Here ἀνθρώπους (anqrwpou") has been translated as a generic (“people”) since both men and women are clearly intended in this context.

[5:12]  ³⁰ tn The translation of the phrase ἐφ᾿ ᾧ (ef Jw) has been heavily debated. For a discussion of all the possibilities, see C. E. B. Cranfield, “On Some of the Problems in the Interpretation of Romans 5.12,” SJT 22 (1969): 324-41. Only a few of the major options can be mentioned here: (1) the phrase can be taken as a relative clause in which the pronoun refers to Adam, “death spread to all people in whom [Adam] all sinned.” (2) The phrase can be taken with consecutive (resultative) force, meaning “death spread to all people with the result that all sinned.” (3) Others take the phrase as causal in force: “death spread to all people because all sinned.”

[8:3]  ³¹ tn Grk “in that.”