Romans 2:16Plain English VersionGod sees everything that everybody does and everything that everybody thinks. Nobody can hide anything from him. One day, God will get Jesus Christ to judge everybody about these things. That is the message that I tell everybody. (The next part, 2:17—3:8, mainly talks to Jewish people, so we have not translated it yet.) See the chapter |
And if we don’t stop doing bad things, he will give us big trouble. He is going to have a big court, and all of us will have to stand in front of the judge. He has already set the date for that. It will be a fair court, and he has picked one man to be the judge. That man died, but God made him alive again. God did that to show everybody that he picked that man to be the big judge.”
God is really great and powerful, so everybody has to tell him that he is good. He can make you strong. This is his message. It is the good news about Jesus Christ. A long time ago, God planned to get both the Jewish people, and the people that are not Jews, to believe in him. But at first he kept it a secret, and he just got the Jewish people to follow him. After that, he got his men to write about it ahead of time, and their words are in his book. Now his message about Jesus is for every nation. It is not just for the Jewish people, but everybody everywhere can trust him, and they can listen to him and do what he wants. God is the only one that can think good enough to make it all work out like that. So everybody has to tell God and Jesus Christ, “You are great.” They have always got to do that for ever. From Paul
So I’m telling you, don’t judge people before the right time comes. You have to wait until our leader Jesus comes back again from heaven. He knows every secret. He will show everyone the secret things that people think about doing. And at that time God will praise each of his good workers, and he will say good things about them.
So if people make trouble for you, just remember that they made trouble for Jesus Christ. He was born into the family of David, the man that was the big boss a long time ago. But people gave Jesus a lot of trouble, and they killed him. But then God made him alive again. That is the good news that I always tell people about Jesus.
I followed Jesus all the way, and very soon he will give me a prize, like a sportsman gets a medal after he wins. Jesus will make me properly good, that will be my prize. Jesus, our leader, is a fair judge, and he has got that prize ready to give me on the day that he comes back. And not just to me. He will give that prize to everybody that wants him to come back again, he will make them all properly good.