Romans 5:1, we have peace, or let us have peace?
Romans 5:1 has both readings: “we have peace with God” states a fact, while “let us have peace with God” gives an exhortation. The Greek forms differ by one vowel.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB is translated by a committee of language models that works blind. The translators are never told they are translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and never shown the witnesses listed above. Where the manuscripts disagree, the choice between readings is made before translation by the same kind of translator working the same way: it sees the competing readings and the witnesses by age and class, but never a reference or a manuscript name. There are 14,877 such places. For APB 4.0 every one was decided again in October 2026. GPT-6.1 Sol decided every one first. Claude Fable 5.1, from another model family, decided 2,483 of them second, including every place where the first translator left the base text. A departure from the base text needs both translators to agree and the first to be at least 0.8 confident. There is no third translator, so the base text stands when the two disagree. APB 4.0 is translated over those decisions. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
“The base text reads ἔχομεν. The copies also carry the omission [greek majuscule; early greek manuscript tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The evidence does not decisively overturn the default.”
“The base text reads ἔχομεν. The copies also carry ἔχωμεν [greek majuscule; early greek manuscript tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The two readers disagreed: the first chose the other wording and the second kept the base text. A departure needs both, so the base text stands. The copies favor the subjunctive but the argument favors the indicative, and the two were pronounced alike.”
The APB 4.0 committee kept ἔχομεν and prints “we have peace with God”. Its textual decision states: “The copies favor the subjunctive but the argument favors the indicative, and the two were pronounced alike.” GPT-6.1 Sol (OpenAI), the first translator, chose the other wording. Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic), the second translator, kept the base text. The recorded disagreement left the base text in place.
The argument for each reading
If “we have”
The case for ἔχομεν rests on the sense of the statement and the editorial judgment represented by Nestle-Aland 28. This reading presents peace with God as a fact following the declaration of righteousness by faith. The APB's next sentence continues with access to grace and the standing that follows from it. That sequence gives the indicative a contextual argument. NA28 prints this reading even though the oldest copies favor the exhortation. The identical pronunciation of omicron and omega also allows for a change during dictation, though it does not establish which direction the change took.
If “let us have”
The case for ἔχωμεν has direct support from the oldest copies. The first hands of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus write omega, giving the exhortation to have peace with God. Westcott-Hort also prints this reading. Later correctors changed several of the manuscript readings to omicron, so the distinction between first hands and corrections matters. The exhortation makes peace with God something urged upon those declared righteous by faith. The shared pronunciation of the two vowels makes confusion during dictation possible, but that possibility alone cannot settle the choice between the readings.
The uncertainty concerns whether peace with God is asserted or urged. The oldest copies favor the exhortation, while NA28 and the APB print the statement. Identical pronunciation helps explain how the forms could be confused without deciding the direction of change. Both readings retain the declaration of righteousness by faith and the words identifying Jesus Christ as the one through whom peace comes.
Related entries
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 from the sources linked above.