Romans 5:12

Plain English Version

Think about the story about Adam. God told him, “If you eat any fruit from that tree, you will die.” Then Adam did the wrong thing, he ate that fruit, so he died. And it’s the same for everybody now. We are all from Adam. We are all in his family, and we all do wrong things, so we all die.

Cross References

Genesis 2:17

There is only one tree that you can’t eat its fruit. You can’t eat the fruit from that tree that lets you know if the things you do are good, or if they are bad. I’m telling you, if you eat any fruit from that tree, you will die, for sure.”

Genesis 3:19

You will work very hard to get your food, so you will get hot, and you will sweat a lot. And later on, you will die. I made you from the dirt, and after you die, your body will turn back into dirt.”

Genesis 3:6

The woman looked at that tree. It was pretty, and the fruit on that tree looked really good to eat, and she reckoned that if she eats some of that fruit, she will think properly. So the woman got some of that fruit, and she ate it, and she gave some of it to her husband, and he ate that fruit too.

Romans 3:23

We all went the wrong way, and we did bad things. Nobody is properly good, like God wants us to be.

Romans 5:18

Adam went wrong, and after that, everybody did bad things. So God had to punish everybody. But then Jesus did something really good, so after that, God will not punish us, but he will let us live with him for ever.

Romans 5:19

That one man, Adam, did something wrong. He did something God told him not to do, so now lots of people do wrong things. But that other man, Jesus, he did something good. He did everything God told him to do, so now he will make lots of people good.

Romans 5:21

It was like this. We couldn’t stop ourselves doing bad things, so we all had to die. But now, nothing will stop our leader, Jesus Christ, from being really good to us. He did a really good thing for us, so now God says that we are good too, and we will live with him for ever.

Romans 6:21

And what did you get after you did bad things? You got shame, that’s all. And you know that people that do those bad things have to die.

Romans 6:23

That’s how it is. If we do bad things, we will get our pay for doing those things. We will die. That’s all the pay we will get. But if we join up to our leader, Jesus Christ, God will give us properly good life. We will live with him for ever.

Ephesians 2:3

And it wasn’t only you mob that were bad. We were all bad. We were like those other people in this world. We did whatever we wanted to do. We did whatever made us feel good. We did whatever our own bodies and minds told us to do. And that made God angry with us, just like he is angry with everyone else.