1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? |
2 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 our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) |
6 God forbid: for then how shall 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? |
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. |
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; |
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 sepulchre; 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 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. |