Romans 5:1 — we have peace, or let us have peace?
Romans 5:1 presents peace with God either as ἔχομεν, a fact, or ἔχωμεν, an exhortation. The difference is omicron versus omega, forms pronounced alike in the era's Greek.
What the APB prints.
Every witness, on the record.
What a blind committee did here.
The APB's translation committee works blind: it is never told it is translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and it never sees the witnesses above. Whatever it did at this verse, it did on the language alone — and its record is public.
The blind committee's record supplies no rationale note matching this crux and gives the pericope audit verdict as "clean." At Romans 5:1, the APB prints the factual rendering of peace with God after justification by faith. Romans 5:2 continues with access by faith into grace and boasting in hope of God's glory.
The case for each reading.
If “we have”
Reading A is ἔχομεν, identified here as a fact. NA28, the 2012 critical edition, prints this form, and the raw apparatus gives the entry ἔχομεν NA28 RP. The APB verse likewise uses a factual rendering of peace with God following justification by faith. The packet describes this as a case in which editors overrule the oldest copies on internal grounds. That internal-ground judgment forms the stated case for A: the indicative fits the edition's editorial assessment despite the packet's report of contrary support among the oldest copies. The one-letter distinction also matters because omicron and omega were pronounced identically in the era's Greek and could be dictated to scribes by ear.
If “let us have”
Reading B is ἔχωμεν, identified here as an exhortation. WH, the 1881 critical edition, prints it, and the raw apparatus reads ἔχωμεν WH Treg. The first hands of ℵ* B* A write omega, while later correctors flipped several to omicron. The packet explicitly says that the oldest copies favor the exhortation, and that WH and Tregelles follow the manuscripts' subjunctive. This supplies a concrete external case for B: the original hands of the named great uncials preserve the omega form. Since the two vowels were pronounced alike in the era's Greek, dictation by ear offers a setting in which either letter could enter a copied text.
The packet leaves an unresolved tension between the oldest copies favoring the exhortation and NA28's internal-ground preference for the indicative. The wording changes whether peace with God is expressed as a fact or an exhortation. No doctrine needs to be decided from this variant; doctrines rest on many passages.
Asked plainly.
What are the two readings in Romans 5:1?
ἔχομεν is identified as a fact, while ἔχωμεν is identified as an exhortation. The forms differ by omicron and omega.
Which listed witnesses support the exhortation?
WH prints ἔχωμεν, and the first hands of ℵ* B* A write omega. The packet says the oldest copies favor the exhortation.
Why could the two readings be confused?
Omicron and omega were pronounced identically in the era's Greek, and the packet notes that texts could be dictated to scribes by ear.
More places where the manuscripts argue.
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited as published scholarly fact with their sources linked above. Nothing on this page declares a winner — the evidence is the point.
Weigh it yourself.
The registry doesn't tell you which reading is true. It puts every witness on one page, shows what a blind committee did with the same language, and leaves the verdict where it belongs — with the reader.