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

For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people are without excuse.

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

He will reward each one according to his works:

eternal life to those who by perseverance in good works seek glory and honor and immortality,

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,

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

Absolutely not! For otherwise how could God judge the world?

All have turned away, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, not even one.”

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded! By what principle? Of works? No, but by the principle of faith!

For we consider that a person is declared righteous by faith apart from the works of the law.

For if Abraham was declared righteous by the works of the law, he has something to boast about – but not before God.

Now to the one who works, his pay is not credited due to grace but due to obligation.

But to the one who does not work, but believes in the one who declares the ungodly righteous, his faith is credited as righteousness.

So even David himself speaks regarding the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would inherit the world was not fulfilled through the law, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.

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

for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin when there is no law.