Romans 3
Intro: The Jews' advantage -- No flesh is justified by the law.
1 What advantage then hath the Jew over the Gentile? or what profit of circumcision, who is not a Jew from the heart?
2 But he who is a Jew from the heart, I say hath much every way; chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
4 God forbid; yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
5 But if we remain in our unrighteousness and commend the righteousness of God, how dare we say, God is unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man who fears God,)
6 God forbid; for then how shall God judge the world?
7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie, (as it is called of the Jews,) unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? and not received? Because we are slanderously reported?
8 And some affirm that we say, (whose damnation is just,) Let us do evil that good may come. But this is false.
9 If not so; what then are we better than they? No, in no wise; for we have proved before, that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin.
10 As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips;
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness;
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;
17 And the way of peace have they not known;
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
20 For by the law is the knowledge of sin; therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight.
21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference;
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
24 Therefore being justified only by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;
25 Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay; but by the law of faith.
28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith alone without the deeds of the law.
29 Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also;
30 Seeing that God will justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.