Romans 12:19

Plain English Version

Listen, my good friends, if somebody does something bad to you, don’t do something bad to them. Don’t do payback to them. No, just wait for God. He will get angry with them, and he will do payback to them one day. We can read this in God’s book, “God says, ‘It is my job to do payback to people for the bad things they do. I will punish them, so don’t try to do it yourself.’ ”

Cross References

Matthew 5:39

But now I’m telling you this, don’t do payback at all. If somebody does something bad to you, don’t do payback to them. Somebody might hit you on one side of your face. All right, let them hit you on the other side of your face too.

Romans 12:14

If anyone makes trouble for you, don’t ask God to punish them, but ask him to help them.

Romans 12:17

If people do some bad things to you, don’t do payback to them. You have to do good things, so that people will know that you are good.

Romans 13:4

Those government bosses really work for God, and their job is to make things good for you. But if you do things that are wrong, look out, you can be frightened of them. They will get you and punish you. God gave them that job to punish everybody that does bad things, and he helps them do it.

Ephesians 4:27

Don’t make it easy for the devil, the boss over the bad spirits, to get you to go wrong.

1 Thessalonians 4:6

None of you men can ever sleep with a woman that is not your own wife. If you do that, you are doing a bad thing to her husband. He is the only person that can sleep with her, so don’t cheat him out of that. Don’t do that bad thing to another Christian, or to anyone else. God is the one that will punish you if you do that. We told you about that when we were with you, and we mean it.

2 Timothy 4:14

Remember that man called Alexander, that makes things out of metal. He gave me a lot of trouble, and he really hurt me. But I will leave it to our leader, Jesus, to punish him for that.

1 Samuel 25:26

But now I have brought all kinds of food for you and your men to eat. So don’t be angry with us now. I know for sure that it is God that stopped you here, so that you did not kill lots of people dead. And I want God to kill anybody that does wrong to you, just like I reckon he will kill Nabal one day.

1 Samuel 25:33

You thought carefully about it, then you came and met me here. So now I ask God to be good to you. Yes, I came to fight, but you stopped me, so I didn’t kill lots of people dead.

1 Samuel 26:10

Some time God himself will finish him up, maybe through sickness, maybe through fighting.

1 Samuel 26:11

But not us. We can’t kill him. God does not want me to kill this man that he picked. Let’s just take his spear, and that billycan of water that is near his head, and we will go back.”