Romans 15:5-20

⁵And may God, the giver of this patience and this encouragement, grant you to be united in sympathy in Christ,

⁶so that with one heart and one voice you may praise the God and Father of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

⁷Therefore always receive one another as friends, just as the Christ himself received us, to the glory of God.

⁸For I tell you that Christ, in vindication of God's truthfulness, has become a minister of the covenant of circumcision, so that he may fulfil the promises made to our ancestors,

⁹and that the Gentiles also may praise God for his mercy. As scripture says — ‘Therefore will I make acknowledgment to you amongst the Gentiles and sing in honour of your name.’

¹⁰And again it says — ‘Rejoice, you Gentiles, with God's people.’

¹¹And yet again — ‘Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all Peoples sing his praises.’

¹²Again, Isaiah says — ‘There will be a Scion of the house of Jesse, One who is to arise to rule the Gentiles; on him will the Gentiles rest their hopes.’

¹³May God, who inspires our hope, grant you perfect happiness and peace in your faith, until you are filled with this hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

¹⁴I am persuaded, my friends — yes, I Paul, with regard to you — that you are yourselves full of kindness, furnished with all Christian learning, and well able to give advice to one another.

¹⁵But in parts of this letter I have expressed myself somewhat boldly — by way of refreshing your memories —

¹⁶because of the charge with which God has entrusted me, that I should be an assistant of Christ Jesus to go to the Gentiles — that I should act as a priest of God's good news, so that the offering up of the Gentiles may be an acceptable sacrifice, consecrated by the Holy Spirit.

¹⁷It is, then, through my union with Christ Jesus that I have a proud confidence in my work for God.

¹⁸For I will not dare to speak of anything but what Christ has done through me to win the obedience of the Gentiles —

¹⁹by my words and actions, through the power displayed in signs and marvels, and through the power of the Holy Spirit. And so, starting from Jerusalem and going as far as Illyria, I have told in full the good news of the Christ;

²⁰yet always with the ambition to tell the good news where Christ's name had not previously been heard, so as to avoid building on another's foundations.