15
Strong Christians have to help weak Christians
1 Some of us are strong and trust God about these things, but other Christians are weak and worry about them a lot. We strong Christians have to be easy on those weak Christians, and help them get strong. We have to think about the problems they have with these things. We can’t just do whatever makes us happy. 2 No, we have to do whatever the other Christians think is right, to help them get strong and trust God more. 3 Remember what Jesus Christ did for all of us. He didn’t just do things that made himself happy. No. He let those cheeky people say bad things about him, like God’s book says,
“People said bad things about you, God,
and they said those same bad things about me.”*Psalm 69:9
4 You know, a long time ago, God got his men to write lots of things like that in his book. He did that to teach us mob that are here today about God. As we think about those things that they wrote, God cheers us up and helps us keep going for him, and we know for sure that God will do everything he promised to do for us. 5-6 I want God, the father of our leader, Jesus Christ, to do that for you. He is the one that can cheer people up, and he keeps them going. I’m asking him to help you follow Jesus Christ properly so that you all live happy together like one family. Then you will all thank him and say that he is really good.
7 So you have to be good to other Christians, and let them join you, just like Jesus Christ was good to you, and he let you join God’s family. Then people will say that God is really good. 8 Remember this. Jesus Christ came here and worked for his own nation, the Jewish people. A long time ago, God promised some things to their elders, and later, Jesus came to show them that God will do what he promised. 9 And Jesus came for the people that are not Jews too, to show them that God feels sorry for them, and that God is good to them, so that they will thank God and tell everybody, “God is really good.” God got his men to write about this, and their words are in God’s book. One of them wrote,
“All right God, I will tell all the people that are not Jews about you,
and I will sing to you and say, ‘You are really great.’ ”*2 Samuel 22:50; Psalm 18:49
10 And another one of God’s men wrote,
“You mob that are not Jews can be happy, together with God’s people.”*Deuteronomy 32:43
11 And another one of God’s men wrote,
“All you mob that are not Jews can say, ‘God is really great,’
And all the people everywhere can say, ‘God is really good.’ ”*Psalm 117:1
12 And Isaiah, another one of God’s men, wrote,
“A Jewish man from David’s family will become the leader of every nation, even the people that are not Jews, and they will be sure that he will save them.”*Isaiah 11:10
13 You see, you can be sure that God can save you. So now I ask him to help you trust him properly, and to make you really happy, and feel good and quiet inside yourselves. Then the Holy Spirit will use his power to help you be really sure that God will do everything that he said he will do.
Paul’s job
14-15 My Christian friends, I’m sure that you already know about the things that I wrote in this letter. Before I started to write this letter, I remembered that you are good people and that you know a lot, and you even teach each other about the things I wrote about. But I got brave and started to write to you anyway, to get you to think a bit more about some of those things. God is good to me, 16 and he picked me out to be a worker for Jesus Christ. My job is to tell the good news about Jesus to people that are not Jews. After I tell them that good news, God’s spirit works in them to make them good and right, and God is really happy with them. It is like I give them to God, like a really good gift.
17 So I like to tell everybody about the things that Jesus Christ has helped me do in my work for God. 18-19 But I will not talk about anything else. I just want to talk about whatever Jesus Christ did. He used me, but he is the one that did it. He got me to tell his true message to people that don’t know God, and his Holy Spirit got me to do powerful things too. After they heard my message and saw the things I did, they turned around and believed God. I started to tell people in Jerusalem the good message about Jesus Christ, and I kept on telling people that message everywhere I went, right out to Illyricum. 20 I always want to tell that good story to people that have never heard about Jesus Christ. I don’t want to go to places where somebody else already told them about Jesus, and just tell them a bit more. No, I want to go and tell people that haven’t heard about Jesus. 21 It is like God’s book says,
“There are people that have never heard about God.
Nobody ever told them anything about him.
But they will hear the message about him.
And they will understand it.”*Isaiah 52:15
(The next part, 15:22-29, says things for just some of the people at Rome at that time, so we have not translated it yet.)
Paul asked the Roman Christians to pray for him
30 My Christian friends, I really want you to pray to God with me. You believe in our leader, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit gets us to love each other, so please pray for me. 31 I will go to Judea soon, so ask God to save me from the mob there that don’t believe in Jesus. And ask God that his people in Jerusalem will be happy with the way I will help them. 32 Then, if God wants me to, I will come to you mob in Rome. I know I will be really happy to meet you, and I will have a good rest with you there. 33 And now I ask God to be with all you mob. He can make us live happy together. Yes, that’s right.