Romans, 2

1. So no matter who you are, if you pass judgement you have no excuse. It is yourself that you condemn when you judge others, since you behave in the same way as those you are condemning.

2. We are well aware that people who behave like that are justly condemned by God.

3. But you -- when you judge those who behave like this while you are doing the same yourself -- do you think you will escape God's condemnation?

4. Or are you not disregarding his abundant goodness, tolerance and patience, failing to realise that this generosity of God is meant to bring you to repentance?

5. Your stubborn refusal to repent is only storing up retribution for yourself on that Day of retribution when God's just verdicts will be made known.

6. He will repay everyone as their deeds deserve.

7. For those who aimed for glory and honour and immortality by persevering in doing good, there will be eternal life;

8. but for those who out of jealousy have taken for their guide not truth but injustice, there will be the fury of retribution.

9. Trouble and distress will come to every human being who does evil -- Jews first, but Greeks as well;

10. glory and honour and peace will come to everyone who does good -- Jews first, but Greeks as well.

11. There is no favouritism with God.

12. All those who have sinned without the Law will perish without the Law; and those under the Law who have sinned will be judged by the Law.

13. For the ones that God will justify are not those who have heard the Law but those who have kept the Law.

14. So, when gentiles, not having the Law, still through their own innate sense behave as the Law commands, then, even though they have no Law, they are a law for themselves.

15. They can demonstrate the effect of the Law engraved on their hearts, to which their own conscience bears witness; since they are aware of various considerations, some of which accuse them, while others provide them with a defence . . . on the day when,

16. according to the gospel that I preach, God, through Jesus Christ, judges all human secrets.

17. If you can call yourself a Jew, and you really trust in the Law, and are proud of your God,

18. and know his will, and tell right from wrong because you have been taught by the Law;

19. if you are confident that you are a guide to the blind and a beacon to those in the dark,

20. that you can teach the ignorant and instruct the unlearned because the Law embodies all knowledge and all truth-

21. so then, in teaching others, do you teach yourself as well? You preach that there is to be no stealing, but do you steal?

22. You say that adultery is forbidden, but do you commit adultery? You detest the worship of objects, but do you desecrate holy things yourself?

23. If, while you are boasting of the Law, you disobey it, then you are bringing God into contempt.

24. As scripture says: It is your fault that the name of God is held in contempt among the nations.

25. Circumcision has its value if you keep the Law; but if you go on breaking the Law, you are no more circumcised than the uncircumcised.

26. And if an uncircumcised man keeps the commands of the Law, will not his uncircumcised state count as circumcision?

27. More, the man who, in his native uncircumcised state, keeps the Law, is a condemnation of you, who, by your concentration on the letter and on circumcision, actually break the Law.

28. Being a Jew is not only having the outward appearance of a Jew, and circumcision is not only a visible physical operation.

29. The real Jew is the one who is inwardly a Jew, and real circumcision is in the heart, a thing not of the letter but of the spirit. He may not be praised by any human being, but he will be praised by God.