Now Paul begins to show where the chain has broken. God has sent the messengers, the messengers have proclaimed the message, the Jews have heard the message, but they have not believed or called on the name of the Lord to be saved. Paul verifies this by a further appeal to scripture; this time the passage is from the Septuagint of Isaiah 53.1.

It is important that the reference of they be perfectly clear. It must be the same as they in verse 14. In order to avoid confusion with messengers and those who bring good news, one may translate as “but not everyone has accepted the Good News” or “not everyone has believed the Good News.” In some languages the closest equivalent may be “but not everyone has received the Good News into his heart.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .