Romans 6:23

Plain English Version

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.

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.”

Matthew 25:46

Then that bad mob will go to the bad place, and God will punish them for ever. But the good mob will go to live in the good place for ever.” (We have not yet translated 26:1—27:62a. You can read those stories and messages in Mark chapters 14 and 15, and Luke chapters 22 and 23. They are about the way people killed Jesus, and put his body in a cave, and blocked that cave with a big stone.)

John 10:28

I will give them new life, so they will live with me for ever, and they will never finish up. Yes, I will hold them properly, so nobody can ever grab them and steal them from me.

John 17:2

You gave me power over everyone, so that I can give life to the people you gave me, so they will live with you for ever.

John 3:36

Anyone that believes in God’s son will live with him for ever. But anyone that does not do what God’s son says, will not live with God, and God will be angry with that person for ever.”

John 4:14

But if anyone drinks the water that I give them, they will never get thirsty again. That water will keep coming up inside them, like a spring of fresh water, and it will make them live for ever.”

John 4:36

Think again about food plants. A worker plants the seeds, and then after they grow up to be big plants, another worker gathers the food from them. And the owner pays both the worker that plants the seeds and the worker that gathers the food. That is a picture of God’s workers. One of them tells people God’s message, and later on, another worker will help those people to believe that message, so that God will take those people into his family and they will live with him for ever. Both of those workers will be really happy when they see people in God’s family, just like both of the workers in the picture story got paid for their work.

John 5:24

Listen, I am telling you straight, God is the one that sent me. If anyone listens to what I say and trusts God, they will live with him for ever. He will say they are not guilty, and he will not punish them. You see, they were going to die, and they were going to stay dead for ever. But now it is different for them. They will live with God for ever.

John 6:27

Listen, that food, like you ate yesterday, it doesn’t last long. So don’t work for food like that. You have to work for food that gets you to live with God for ever. I am God’s special man from heaven, and I can give you that special food. And God, my father, told me to do that.”

John 6:40

Everyone that takes notice of me and believes in me will live with God for ever. That’s what God, my father, wants. On the day when the world will finish up, I will make them alive again.”

John 6:68

Peter said, “No, sir. Who would we go to? Your words will make us live with God for ever. Nobody else has a message like that.

Romans 1:32

A long time ago, God said, “Anyone that does these sorts of things has to die.” That is true, and those people know that God said that, but they don’t take any notice of him. They keep on doing those bad things, and worse still, they push other people to do them.

Romans 2:7

Some people keep on doing good things, and later on God will be good to them. They want to make God happy, so they listen to him, and they do the good things he tells them to do. Later on, he will give them life that never ends. They will live with him for ever.

Romans 5:12

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.

Romans 5:17

That one man, Adam, he did something bad, so now lots of people die. But that other man, Jesus Christ, he did something good, so now lots of people will live with God for ever. God is really good to them now, and he makes them good too. Yes, Jesus did a much better thing for us than Adam did.

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 6:16

You know that if you always do whatever another person wants, you make that person your boss. So if you do bad things all the time, you make those bad things your boss, and in the end you will die. But if you do whatever God wants all the time, you make him your boss, and in the end he will say that you are really good.

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 8:13

If you keep on doing those bad things, you will die. But if God’s spirit is in you, he can help you block that bad part of you, like you kill it, and then you will not do those bad things, and you will live with God for ever.

Romans 8:38

I’m really sure that nothing at all can make God stop loving us. Even if they kill us, it doesn’t matter, God still loves us. Those good spirits, the angels, they will not stop him. And those bad spirits, they can’t make him stop loving us. Things that happen now will not stop him, and things that will happen later will not stop him either. No strong spirit anywhere can stop him from loving us. Nothing anywhere. Nothing way up in the sky, nothing way down in the sea, nothing anywhere can stop him loving us. You see, God showed us that he loves us. He sent Jesus Christ, our leader, to die for us. (The next part, 9:1—10:4, mainly talks to the Jewish people, so we have not translated it yet.)

Romans 8:6

If we let that bad part inside us be our boss, and if we only do whatever makes us feel good, we will die. But if we do the things the Holy Spirit tells us, and if we let him control us, we will live happy and quiet inside ourselves.

Galatians 3:10

You see, God will make trouble for those people that reckon they are all right by just following the law. They think that, in the end, God will agree that they are all right. But they are wrong. God says this in his book, “You have to keep on doing everything in the law book, or God will punish you.”

Titus 1:2

A long time ago, before God made anything, he promised that his people will live with him for ever. And God doesn’t lie. His promise is still true, and it stops his people from worrying about what will happen after they die.