Romans, 3

1. What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit [is there] of circumcision?

1. Then, what is the advantage of being a Jew? And what is the use of circumcision?

2. Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

2. It is important from any point of view. In the first place, it was to the Jews that God entrusted his word.

3. For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

3. Well now, if some of them were not faithful, will their unfaithfulness do away with the faithfulness of God? Of course not.

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.

4. Rather, it will be proved that God is truthful, every human a liar, as the Scripture says: it will be proved that your words are true and you will be winner if they want to judge you.

5. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? [Is] God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)

5. If our wickedness shows God to be just, would it be right to say that God is unjust when he gets angry and punishes us? (Some people might speak like this.)

6. God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?

6. - Not at all because, otherwise, how could God judge the world?

7. For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?

7. - But if my lie makes the truth of God more evident, thus increasing his glory, is it correct to call me a sinner?

8. And not [rather], (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.

8. - Then, your only choice would be to sin, so that good may come of it. Some slanderers say that this is my teaching, but they will have to answer for those words.

9. What then? are we better [than they]? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

9. Do we have, then, any advantage? Not really. For we have just demonstrated that all, Jews and non-Jews, are under the power of sin,

10. As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

10. as the Scripture says: Nobody is good, not even one,

11. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

11. no one understands, no one looks for God.

12. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

12. All have gone astray and have become base. There is no one doing what is good, not even one.

13. Their throat [is] an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps [is] under their lips:

13. Their throats are open tombs, their words deceit.

14. Whose mouth [is] full of cursing and bitterness:

14. Their lips hide poison of vipers, from their mouth come bitter curses.

15. Their feet [are] swift to shed blood:

15. They run to where they can shed blood,

16. Destruction and misery [are] in their ways:

16. leaving behind ruin and misery.

17. And the way of peace have they not known:

17. They do not know the way of peace,

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

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.

19. Now we know that whatever the Scripture says, it is said for the people of the Law, that is for the Jews. Let all be silent then and recognize that the whole world is guilty before God.

20. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law [is] the knowledge of sin.

20. Still more: no mortal will be worthy before God by performing the demands of the Law. What comes from the Law is the consciousness of sin.

21. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

21. Yet, now we are told how God makes us just as he wants us to be without the Law. This was already foretold in 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:

22. God makes us righteous by means of faith in Jesus Christ, and this is applied to all who believe, without distinction of persons.

23. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

23. Because all have sinned and all fall short of the Glory of God;

24. Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

24. and all are graciously forgiven and made righteous through the redemption effected in Christ Jesus.

25. Whom God hath 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;

25. For God has given him to be the victim whose blood obtains us forgiveness through faith. So God shows us how he makes us righteous. Past sins are forgiven

26. To declare, [I say], at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

26. which God overlooked till now. For now he wants to reveal his way of righteousness: how he is just and how he makes us righteous through faith in Jesus.

27. Where [is] boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

27. Then what becomes of our pride? It is excluded. How? Not through the Law and its observances, but through another law which is faith.

28. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

28. For we hold that people are in God's grace by faith and not because of all the things ordered by the Law.

29. [Is he] the God of the Jews only? [is he] not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:

29. Otherwise, God would be the God of the Jews; but is he not God of pagan nations as well?

30. Seeing [it is] one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.

30. Of course he is, for there is only one God and he will save by faith the circumcised Jews as well as the uncircumcised nations.

31. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

31. Do we, then, deny the value of the Law because of what we say of faith? Of course not; rather we place the Law in its proper place.