5 [ref]Moses wrote this about the righteousness of The Law: ‘The person who practices it, will live by it.’ 6 [ref]But the righteousness based on faith says: ‘Don’t speculate in your mind about who will go up to heaven in order to bring Messiah down, 7 and don’t ask about who will be going down to the pit in order to bring Messiah up.’ 8 So what does the righteousness based on faith say? It says: ‘The message is close to you—it’s in your mouth and heart.’ That’s the message of faith that we’ve been preaching: 9 That if you speak out and confess that Yeshua is master and you believe in your heart that God brought him back to life from the dead, you will be saved, 10 because it’s the belief in your mind that leads to righteousness and it’s the confession from your mouth that leads to salvation. 11 [ref]As the scriptures say: ‘Anyone who believes in him won’t end up disgraced.’ 12 There’s no distinction between Jew and non-Jew, because we all have the same master who gives generously to everyone who makes an appeal to him, 13 [ref]because everyone who wishfully appeals to the authority of the master will be saved.

14 How, then, could they appeal to a God that they don’t even believe in? And how could they believe if they haven’t even heard about him? Then how would they hear if no one was preaching to them? 15 [ref]And who would be there preaching if no one was sent out just like it’s been written: ‘It’s so wonderful that these people came and preached the good message.’? 16 But not everyone accepted the good message, because just like the prophet Isayah wrote:[ref] ‘Master, who believed our report?’ 17 And so faith comes by hearing—hearing Messiah’s message.

18 But then I’d ask: Maybe they haven’t heard it? Indeed they have. It’s written:[ref]

‘Their voice went out into all the earth,

and their messages went across all the world.’

19 But again I’d ask: Didn’t the Israeli’s know? Well, firstly Moses wrote:[ref]

‘I’ll be making you all jealous

using people who’re not even a nation.

Then using a foolish nation,

I’ll be making you all angry.’

20 And Isayah dared to write:[ref]

‘The ones who weren’t looking for me found me.

I showed myself to the ones not asking about me.’

21 But to Israel he wrote:[ref] ‘All day I stretched out my hands to a people who won’t believe and who speak against me.’