Does God stay faithful?
1What advantage, then, does the Jew have? What is the use of circumcision? 2Much, in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the words of God. 3And what if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness cancel the faithfulness of God? 4Never. Let God be true and every human being a liar, as it stands written: “So that you may be proved right in your words and win your case when you are judged.” 5But if our wrongdoing throws God’s righteousness into relief, what shall we say? That God is unjust to bring down his wrath? I am putting it as a man would put it. 6Never. If he were, how could God judge the world? 7But if my lie makes God’s truth overflow to his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner? 8And why not say what we are slandered for saying—“Let us do evil so that good may come”? The condemnation of such people is deserved.
No one is righteous
9What then? Are we better off? Not in the least. We have already brought the charge that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin, 10as it stands written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands, no one who searches for God. 12All have turned away; together they have gone rotten. There is no one who does good, not even one. 13Their throat is an open grave; their tongues are busy with deceit. The venom of vipers is under their lips. 14Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. 15Their feet are quick to shed blood; 16ruin and misery mark their roads, 17and the way of peace they have never known. 18There 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 stopped and the whole world be held answerable to God. 20For no flesh will be justified before him by works of the law; what comes through the law is the knowledge of sin.
Righteousness apart from the law
21But now, apart from the law, God’s righteousness has been brought into the open—the law and the prophets bear witness to it— 22God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. There is no distinction: 23everyone has sinned and falls short of the glory of God, 24and they are justified as a gift, by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 25God set him forth as the place of atonement, through faith, by his blood. He did it to show his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had passed over the sins committed before; 26he did it to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be righteous himself and might justify the one who lives by faith in Jesus. 27Where, then, is there room for boasting? It is shut out. By what law? The law of works? No—by the law of faith. 28For we count that a person is justified by faith, apart from works of the law. 29Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30since God is one: he will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31Do we, then, abolish the law by this faith? Never. We uphold the law.
