“Their throats are open graves, they deceive with their tongues, the poison of asps is under their lips.”

Now if their transgression means riches for the world and their defeat means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full restoration bring?

“Their feet are swift to shed blood,

ruin and misery are in their paths,

let their eyes be darkened so that they may not see, and make their backs bend continually.”

For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened.

Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.

For they were pleased to do this, and indeed they are indebted to the Jerusalem saints. For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are obligated also to minister to them in material things.

“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

if somehow I could provoke my people to jealousy and save some of them.

And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.”

They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend them,

But I ask, have they not heard? Yes, they have: Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.

What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief nullify the faithfulness of God?

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God on behalf of my fellow Israelites is for their salvation.

For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

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

And David says, “Let their table become a snare and trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them;

I ask then, they did not stumble into an irrevocable fall, did they? Absolutely not! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make Israel jealous.

Also greet the church in their house. Greet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.