The verbs in this verse are impersonal in form (literally “one believes … one declares”). However, it is more effective in English to render them with a personal force: we believe … we declare (see Jerusalem Bible). The parallelism in this verse is similar to that discussed in 4.25; it is wrong to separate the two clauses and to look for a different meaning in each. Paul is here speaking of two sides of the same thing, not of two different things.

In the first part of verse 10 believe in our hearts and are put right with God are related as cause and effect, that is to say, our being put right with God results from our believing in our hearts. Similarly, salvation is the result of declaring this faith with our lips. However, it is usually better not to express the relation of result too explicitly but rather to leave the relation implicit, as is done in the Good News Translation; the relation between the events is assumed to be a normal and natural sequence. To make the results too explicit would tend to make the reader assume that belief and declaration are two quite separate types of activities leading to two quite different results. One might, therefore, paraphrase the relation as “belief leads to being put right with God and declaration of faith leads to being saved.”

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 .