without understanding, untrustworthy, unfeeling, and unmerciful;
Parallel translations
- WEB without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful;
- KJV Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
- BSB They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.
- NKJV undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful;
- NLT They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
They are senseless, faithless, heartless, and merciless. Sin hardens people against the natural bonds and kindness that should mark human life.
Overview
The final terms in the list emphasize the loss of what is most basically human: understanding, faithfulness to commitments, natural family affection, and mercy. This portrays the depth of corruption when people are given over to sin. It sets the stage for Paul's conclusion that such sin is fully blameworthy.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Prov 18:2A fool has no delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own opinion.
- 2 Tim 3:3without natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, not lovers of good,
- Rom 3:11There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God.
- Isa 33:8The highways are desolate. The traveling man ceases. The covenant is broken. He has despised the cities. He doesn’t respect man.
- Jer 4:22“For my people are foolish, they don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.”
- Matt 15:16So Jesus said, “Do you also still not understand?
- Isa 27:11When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.
- 2 Kgs 18:14–37Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, “I have offended you. Return from me. That which you put on me, I will bear.” The king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
- Rom 1:20–21For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Paul unfolds the gospel in full: Christ our righteousness received by faith, the second Adam in whom many are made righteous, in whose death and resurrection we are buried and raised.
How Romans 1:31 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.