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12 
“So I gave them up to the stubbornness of their heart,
To walk in [the path of] their own counsel.(A)

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So I will choose their punishments,
And will bring the things they dread upon them
Because I called, but no one answered;
I spoke, but they did not listen or obey.
But they did evil in My sight
And chose that in which I did not delight.”

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21 For even though [a]they knew God [as the Creator], they did not [b]honor Him as God or give thanks [for His wondrous creation]. On the contrary, they became worthless in their thinking [godless, with pointless reasonings, and silly speculations], and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God for [c]an image [worthless idols] in the shape of mortal man and birds and four-footed animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their own hearts to [sexual] impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them [abandoning them to the degrading power of sin], 25 because [by choice] they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. Romans 1:21 Anyone who attributes the existence of the world to chance or to a different creator is already guilty of deliberately rejecting God, because to deny the true God one must set aside common sense.
  2. Romans 1:21 Lit glorify.
  3. Romans 1:23 Paul’s indictment of idolatry (images) is logical and devastating. He emphasizes that idols are essentially copies of living creatures, whether in human form (as, for example, in ancient Greek myth) or otherwise (as in Egyptian idolatry and metaphysics). These lifeless images are clearly powerless, and even the living creatures which they supposedly represent are either nonexistent hybrids and monsters, or else ordinary creatures on earth who could hardly create so much as a grain of sand.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or consider Him worth knowing [as their Creator], God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do things which are improper and repulsive,

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