1   Therefore, now that we have been justified through faith, let us continue at peace ^note with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2   through whom we have been allowed to enter the sphere of God's grace, where we now stand. Let us exult ^note in the hope of the divine splendour that is to be ours. 3   More than this: let us even exult ^note in our present sufferings, because we know that suffering trains us to endure, 4   and endurance brings proof that we have stood the test, and this proof is the ground of hope. 5   Such a hope is no mockery, because God's love has flooded our inmost heart through the Holy Spirit he has given us.

6   For at the very time when we were still powerless, then Christ died for the wicked. 7   Even for a just man one of us would hardly die, though perhaps for a good man one might actually brave death; but Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, 8   and that is God's own proof of his love towards us. 9   And so, since we have now been justified by Christ's sacrificial death, we shall all the more certainly be saved through him from final retribution. 10   For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his

The Gospel according to Paul Son, how much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life! 11   But that is not all: we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus, through whom we have now been granted reconciliation.

12   Mark what follows. It was through one man that sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus death pervaded the whole human race, inasmuch as all men have sinned. 13   For sin was already in the world before there was law, though in the absence of law no reckoning is kept of sin. 14   But death held sway from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned as Adam did, by disobeying a direct command—and Adam foreshadows the Man who was to come.

15   But God's act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam's wrongdoing. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many, its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. 16   And again, the gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man's sin; for the judicial action, following upon the one offence, issued in a verdict of condemnation, but the act of grace, following upon so many misdeeds, issued in a verdict of acquittal. 17   For if by the wrongdoing of that one man death established its reign, through a single sinner, much more shall those who receive in far greater measure God's grace, and his gift of righteousness, live and reign through the one man, Jesus Christ.

18   It follows, then, that as the issue of one misdeed was condemnation for all men, so the issue of one just act is acquittal and life for all men. 19   For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

20   Law intruded into this process to multiply law-breaking. But where sin was thus multiplied, grace immeasurably exceeded it, in order that, 21   as sin established its reign by way of death, so God's grace might establish its reign in righteousness, and issue in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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