Romans 3

¹What, then, [is] the advantage of [being] a Jew? Or what [is] the value of circumcision?

²Much in every way. First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.

³What if some did not have faith? {Will} their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness?

⁴Certainly not! {Let} God be true and every man a liar. As it is written: “So that You may be proved right when You speak and victorious when You judge.”

⁵But if our unrighteousness highlights the righteousness of God, what shall we say? [That] God [is] unjust to inflict [His] wrath [on us]? I am speaking in human terms.

⁶Certainly not! In that case, how {could} God judge the world?

⁷However, if my falsehood accentuates God’s truthfulness, to the increase of His glory, why {am} I still condemned as a sinner?

⁸[Why] not [say], as some slanderously claim [that] we say, “Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is deserved!

⁹What then? Are we any better? Not at all. For we have already made the charge [that] Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin.

¹⁰As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one.

¹¹There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

¹²All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

¹³“Their throats [are] open graves; their tongues practice deceit.”“[The] venom of vipers [is] on their lips.”

¹⁴“[Their] mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”

¹⁵“Their feet [are] swift to shed blood;

¹⁶ruin and misery [lie] in their wake,

¹⁷and [the] way of peace they have not known.”

¹⁸“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

²⁰Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For [the] law merely brings awareness of sin.

²¹But now, apart from [the] law, [the] righteousness of God has been revealed, as attested by the Law and the Prophets.

²²And [this] righteousness [from] God [comes] through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction,

²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

²⁴[and are] justified freely by His grace through the redemption that [is] in Christ Jesus.

²⁵God presented [Him] [as an] atoning sacrifice in His blood through faith, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in [His] forbearance [He] had passed over the sins committed beforehand.

²⁶[He did this] to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and to justify the [one] [who has] faith in Jesus.

²⁷Where, then, [is] boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? [On] that of works? No, but on [that] of faith.

²⁸For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

²⁹[Is God] the God of Jews only? [Is He] not [the God] of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too,

³⁰since [there is only] one God, who will justify [the] circumcised by faith and [the] uncircumcised through that [same] faith.

³¹Do we, then, nullify [the] law by [this] faith? Certainly not! Instead, we uphold [the] law.