< Romans 2 >
1 Therefore you have nothing to say in your own defense, whoever you are who set yourself up as a judge. In judging others you condemn yourself, for you who set yourself up as a judge do the very same things.
2 And we know that God’s judgment falls unerringly on those who do them.
3 You who judge those that do such things and yet are yourself guilty of them – do you suppose that you of all people will escape God’s judgment?
4 Or do you think lightly of his abundant kindness, patience, and forbearance, not realizing that his kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
5 Hard-hearted and impenitent as you are, you are storing up for yourself wrath on the day of wrath, when God’s justice as a judge will be revealed;
6 for he will give to everyone what their actions deserve.
7 To those who, by perseverance in doing good, aim at glory, honor, and all that is imperishable, he will give immortal life; (aiōnios )
8 while as to those who are factious, and disobedient to truth but obedient to evil, wrath and anger, distress and despair,
9 will fall on every human being who persists in wrongdoing – on the Jew first, but also on the Greek.
10 But there will be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does right – for the Jew first, but also for the Greek,
11 since God shows no partiality.
12 All who, when they sin, are without Law will also perish without Law; while all who, when they sin, are under Law, will be judged as being under Law.
13 It is not those who hear the words of a Law that are righteous before God, but it is those who obey it that will be pronounced righteous.
14 When Gentiles, who have no Law, do instinctively what the Law requires, they, though they have no Law, are a Law to themselves;
15 for they show the demands of the Law written on their hearts; their consciences corroborating it, while in their thoughts they argue either in self-accusation or, it may be, in self-defense –
16 on the day when God passes judgment on people’s inmost lives, as the good news that I tell declares that he will do through Christ Jesus.
17 But, perhaps, you bear the name of ‘Jew,’ and are relying on Law, and boast of belonging to God, and understand his will,
18 and, having been carefully instructed from the Law, have learned to appreciate the finer moral distinctions.
19 Perhaps you are confident that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in the dark, an instructor of the unintelligent,
20 and a teacher of the childish, because in the Law you possess the outline of all knowledge and truth.
21 Why, then, you teacher of others, don’t you teach yourself? Do you preach against stealing, and yet steal?
22 Do you forbid adultery, and yet commit adultery? Do you loathe idols, and yet plunder temples?
23 Boasting, as you do, of your Law, do you dishonor God by breaking the Law?
24 For, as scripture says – ‘The Gentiles insult God’s name because of you’!
25 Circumcision has its value, if you are obeying the Law. But, if you are a breaker of the Law, your circumcision is no better than uncircumcision.
26 If, then, an uncircumcised man pays regard to the requirements of the Law, won’t he, although not circumcised, be regarded by God as if he were?
27 Indeed, the person who, owing to his birth, remains uncircumcised, and yet scrupulously obeys the Law, will condemn you, who, for all your written Law and your circumcision, are yet a breaker of the Law.
28 For a man who is only a Jew outwardly is not a real Jew; nor is outward bodily circumcision real circumcision. The real Jew is the person who is a Jew in soul;
29 and the real circumcision is the circumcision of the heart, a spiritual and not a literal thing. Such a person wins praise from God, though not from people.
