Chapter 12

1 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—alive, holy, and pleasing to God—which is your reasonable service.⁠ 2 Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and perfect. 3 For by the grace given to me I say to every one of you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think with sober discernment, as God has distributed to each of you a measure of faith. 4 For just as in one body we have many members, and not all the members serve the same function, 5 so we who are many are one body in Christ, and individually we are members who belong to one another. 6 And we have different gifts according to the grace given to us. If the gift is prophecy, that individual must use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is service, he must serve; if it is teaching, he must teach; 8 if it is exhortation, he must exhort; if it is contributing, he must do so with sincerity; if it is leadership, he must do so with diligence; if it is showing mercy, he must do so with cheerfulness. 9 Love must be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good.⁠ 10 Be devoted to one another with mutual love, showing eagerness in honoring one another. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be enthusiastic in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, endure in suffering, persist in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints, pursue hospitality.⁠ 14 Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. Do not be conceited. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil; consider what is good before all people.⁠ 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all people. 19 Do not avenge yourselves, dear friends, but give place to God’s wrath, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,”⁠ says the Lord.⁠ 20 Rather, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in doing this you will be heaping burning coals on his head.⁠ 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Sirach 7:34 and Romans 12:15

Deuterocanon · New Testament

Summary

Romans 12 echoes Sirach in urging readers to mourn with those who mourn and to care for the poor and vulnerable. Both portray compassion and solidarity as central to community life, drawing on a shared Jewish tradition.

Passages

Sirach 7:34

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus

30 With all your strength love him who made you. Don’t forsake his ministers. 31 Fear the Lord and honor the priest. Give him his portion, even as it is commanded you: the first fruits, the trespass offering, the gift of the shoulders, the sacrifice of sanctification, and the first fruits of holy things. 32 Also stretch out your hand to the poor man, that your blessing may be complete. 33 A gift has grace in the sight of every living man. Don’t withhold grace for a dead man. 34 Don’t avoid those who weep, and mourn with those who mourn. 35 Don’t be slow to visit a sick man, for by such things you will gain love. 36 In all your words, remember eternity, and you will never sin.

195–180 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Sirach

Romans 12:15

New Testament

10 Be devoted to one another with mutual love, showing eagerness in honoring one another. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be enthusiastic in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, endure in suffering, persist in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints, pursue hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. Do not be conceited.

55–58 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Romans

References

"... In Romans 12:4-13, the kind of piety stressed in previous lines as due to the Jewish god (defined in special insider terms as the father of Jesus, and at times conveniently indistinguishable as here in Romans 12:12 from Jesus as “Lord”) is further described in terms of qualified positive engagement with common first-century Greco-Roman Jewish ideals. The stress on proper holy “zeal” expressed in prayerful obedience recalls the Jewish insider ideals and identities promoted in the Maccabean letters, and as some commentators have noticed, the reference to meeting “the needs of the saints” strongly connotes community support for relatively underprivileged Jewish insiders, potentially in terms of future offerings for “the saints” in Jerusalem (like the one promoted later as important in Romans 15:25-31), help for local Roman Jewish insiders targeted by the emperor Claudius, etc. As noted by Jewett and others, the kind of ideal insider excellence of character and behavior expressed in Romans 12:14-18 in terms of humility, rejoicing with those who rejoice, and weeping with those who weep (seen above to be in line with Greco-Roman ideals) also has suggestive traditional Jewish parallels (Jewett cites here Sirach 7:34: “Do not withdraw yourself from weepers, and mourn with mourners”). The fact that such traditional Jewish values and exhortation are specifically directed here at promoting practical community mutuality and solidarity of a kind seen to be appropriate to the service of association networks ... underlines yet again the community-defining focus and function of the passage and the letter ..."

Aaron Ricker, Ancient Letters and the Purpose of Romans, LNTS 630 (London: T&T Clark, 2020), 137–138.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Romans16 chapters

Compare Sirach 7:34 and Romans 12:15

Summary

Passages

Sirach 7:34

Romans 12:15

References

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