Romans 3
1 What advantage then hath the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision?
What is the advantage, then, of being a Jew? or what is the good of circumcision?
2 Much every way. First indeed, because the words of God were committed to them.
Great in every way. First of all, because the Jews were entrusted with God’s utterances.
3 For what if some of them have not believed? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid.
What follows then? Some, no doubt, showed a want of faith; but will their want of faith make God break faith? Heaven forbid!
4 But God is true; and every man a liar, as it is written, That thou mayest be justified in thy words, and mayest overcome when thou art judged.
God must prove true, though every man prove a liar! As Scripture says of God — ‘That thou mayest be pronounced righteous in what thou sayest, and gain thy cause when men would judge thee.’
5 But if our injustice commend the justice of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust, who executeth wrath?
But what if our wrong-doing makes God’s righteousness all the clearer? Will God be wrong in inflicting punishment? (I can but speak as a man.) Heaven forbid!
6 (I speak according to man.) God forbid: otherwise how shall God judge this world?
Otherwise how can God judge the world?
7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie, unto his glory, why am I also yet judged as a sinner?
But, if my falsehood redounds to the glory of God, by making his truthfulness more apparent, why am I like others, still condemned as a sinner?
8 And not rather (as we are slandered, and as some affirm that we say) let us do evil, that there may come good? whose damnation is just.
Why should we not say — as some people slanderously assert that we do say — ‘Let us do evil that good may come’? The condemnation of such men is indeed just!
9 What then? Do we excel them? No, not so. For we have charged both Jews, and Greeks, that they are all under sin.
What follows, then? Are we Jews in any way superior to others? Not at all. Our indictment against both Jews and Greeks was that all alike were in subjection to sin.
10 As it is written: There is not any man just.
As Scripture says — ‘There is not even one who is righteous,
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
not one who understands, not one who is searching for God!
12 All have turned out of the way; they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good, there is not so much as one.
They have all gone astray; they have one and all become depraved; there is no one who is doing good — no, not one!’
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have dealt deceitfully. The venom of asps is under their lips.
‘Their throats are like opened graves; they deceive with their tongues.’ ‘The venom of serpents lies behind their lips,’
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
‘And their mouths are full of bitter curses.’
15 Their feet swift to shed blood:
‘Swift are their feet to shed blood.
16 Destruction and misery in their ways:
Distress and trouble dog their steps,
17 And the way of peace they have not known:
and the path of peace they do not know.’
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
‘The fear of God is not before their eyes.’
19 Now we know, that what things soever the law speaketh, it speaketh to them that are in the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be made subject to God.
Now we know that everything said in the Law is addressed to those who are under its authority, in order that every mouth may be closed, and the whole world become liable to the judgment of God.
20 Because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before him. For by the law is the knowledge of sin.
For ‘no human being will be pronounced righteous before God’ as the result of obedience to Law; for it is Law that shows what sin is.
21 But now without the law the justice of God is made manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
But now, quite apart from Law, the Divine Righteousness stands revealed, and to it the Law and the Prophets bear witness —
22 Even the justice of God, by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe in him: for there is no distinction:
the Divine Righteousness which is bestowed, through faith in Jesus Christ, upon all, without distinction, who believe in him.
23 For all have sinned, and do need the glory of God.
For all have sinned, and all fall short of God’s glorious ideal,
24 Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption, that is in Christ Jesus,
but, in his loving-kindness, are being freely pronounced righteous through the deliverance found in Christ Jesus.
25 Whom God hath proposed to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to the shewing of his justice, for the remission of former sins,
For God set him before the world, to be, by the shedding of his blood, a means of reconciliation through faith. And this God did to prove his righteousness, and because, in his forbearance, he had passed over the sins that men had previously committed;
26 Through the forbearance of God, for the shewing of his justice in this time; that he himself may be just, and the justifier of him, who is of the faith of Jesus Christ.
as a proof, I repeat, at the present time, of his own righteousness, that he might be righteous in our eyes, and might pronounce righteous the man who takes his stand on faith in Jesus.
27 Where is then thy boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.
What, then, becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what sort of Law? A Law requiring obedience? No, a Law requiring faith.
28 For we account a man to be justified by faith, without the works of the law.
For we conclude that a man is pronounced righteous on the ground of faith, quite apart from obedience to Law.
29 Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also.
Or can it be that God is the God only of the Jews? Is not he also the God of the Gentiles?
30 For it is one God, that justifieth circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is only one God, and he will pronounce those who are circumcised righteous as the result of faith, and also those who are uncircumcised on their showing the same faith.
31 Do we, then, destroy the law through faith? God forbid: but we establish the law.
Do we, then, use this faith to abolish Law? Heaven forbid! No, we establish Law.
