You who sit in judgment
1So you have no defense, whoever you are, when you sit in judgment. In judging someone else you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, do the very same things. 2We know that God’s verdict on those who do such things rests on the truth. 3And do you imagine, you who judge those who do such things while doing them yourself, that you will slip past God’s judgment? 4Or do you make light of the wealth of his kindness, his forbearance, his patience, refusing to see that God’s kindness is leading you toward repentance? 5But with your hardness, with a heart that will not repent, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s just judgment is revealed. 6He will repay each person according to what they have done: 7eternal life to those who, by patient endurance in doing good, seek glory and honor and immortality; 8but wrath and fury to those who are driven by selfish ambition, who refuse the truth and give themselves to wrongdoing. 9Trouble and anguish for every human being who works evil, the Jew first and then the Greek; 10but glory and honor and peace for everyone who works good, the Jew first and then the Greek. 11God shows no favoritism. 12All who sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God; it is the doers of the law who will be justified. 14When Gentiles, who have no law, do by instinct what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, though the law is not theirs. 15They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their conscience bearing witness alongside, their thoughts accusing them or even speaking in their defense 16on the day when God judges what people keep hidden, through Christ Jesus, according to my gospel.
The name of Jew
17Now then: you call yourself a Jew, you lean on the law, you boast in God; 18you know his will, and you can tell what truly matters, because the law has trained you; 19you are sure you are a guide for the blind, a light for those in the dark, 20an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, since in the law you have the very shape of knowledge and truth. 21Then you who teach others—do you not teach yourself? You preach against stealing—do you steal? 22You say adultery is forbidden—do you commit adultery? You loathe idols—do you rob temples? 23You boast in the law—do you dishonor God by breaking it? 24For, as it stands written, “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” 25Circumcision has value if you keep the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision has turned into uncircumcision. 26So if an uncircumcised man keeps the just requirements of the law, will his uncircumcision not be counted as circumcision? 27The one who is physically uncircumcised and yet fulfills the law will judge you, who have the letter and the circumcision and still break the law. 28For no one is a Jew who is one on the surface, and circumcision is not what is done on the surface, in the flesh. 29The Jew is the one who is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart—by the Spirit, not by the letter. Such a person’s praise comes not from people but from God.
