For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
Parallel translations
- WEB For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.
- KJV For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
- BSB We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time.
- NKJV For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
- NLT For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
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
All creation groans together in pain like childbirth until now. The present suffering of the world signals the birth pangs of the coming renewal.
Overview
Paul depicts the whole creation groaning and travailing as in labor. This imagery casts present suffering not as meaningless decay but as the painful prelude to new birth. The groaning of creation anticipates the deliverance and glory yet to come.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Jer 12:4How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? For the wickedness of those who dwell therein, the animals are consumed, and the birds; because they said, “He shall not see our latter end.”
- Jer 12:11They have made it a desolation. It mourns to me, being desolate. The whole land is made desolate, because no man lays it to heart.
- John 16:21A woman, when she gives birth, has sorrow, because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she doesn’t remember the anguish any more, for the joy that a human being is born into the world.
- Col 1:23if it is so that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Good News which you heard, which is being proclaimed in all creation under heaven; of which I, Paul, was made a servant.
- Rom 8:20For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope
- Mark 16:15He said to them, “Go into all the world, and preach the Good News to the whole creation.
- Rev 12:2She was with child. She cried out in pain, laboring to give birth.
- Ps 48:6Trembling took hold of them there, pain, as of a woman in travail.
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 8:22 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.