OEBcth - Romans - 2

2:1  Therefore you have nothing to say in your own defence, whoever you are who set yourself up as a judge. In judging others you condemn yourself, for you who set yourself up as a judge do the very same things.

2:2  And we know that God’s judgment falls unerringly on those who do them.

2:3  You who judge those that do such things and yet are yourself guilty of them — do you suppose that you of all people will escape God’s judgment?

2:4  Or do you think lightly of his abundant kindness, patience, and forbearance, not realising that his kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

2:5  Hard-hearted and impenitent as you are, you are storing up for yourself wrath on the ‘day of wrath,’ when God’s justice as a judge will be revealed;

2:6  for ‘he will give to everyone what their actions deserve.’

2:7  To those who, by perseverance in doing good, aim at glory, honour, and all that is imperishable, he will give immortal life;

2:8  while as to those who are factious, and disobedient to truth but obedient to evil, wrath and anger, distress and despair,

2:9  will fall on every human being who persists in wrong-doing — on the Jew first, but also on the Greek.

2:10  But there will be glory, honour, and peace for everyone who does right — for the Jew first, but also for the Greek,

2:11  since God shows no partiality.

2:12  All who, when they sin, are without law will also perish without law; while all who, when they sin, are under law, will be judged as being under law.

2:13  It is not those who hear the words of a law that are righteous before God, but it is those who obey it that will be pronounced righteous.

2:14  When Gentiles, who have no law, do instinctively what the law requires, they, though they have no law, are a law to themselves;

2:15  for they show the demands of the law written on their hearts; their consciences corroborating it, while in their thoughts they argue either in self-accusation or, it may be, in self-defence —

2:16  on the day when God passes judgment on people’s inmost lives, as the good news that I tell declares that he will do through Christ Jesus.

2:17  But, perhaps, you bear the name of ‘Jew,’ and are relying on law, and boast of belonging to God, and understand his will,

2:18  and, having been carefully instructed from the law, have learned to appreciate the finer moral distinctions.

2:19  Perhaps you are confident that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in the dark, an instructor of the unintelligent,

2:20  and a teacher of the childish, because in the law you possess the outline of all knowledge and truth.

2:21  Why, then, you teacher of others, do not you teach yourself? Do you preach against stealing, and yet steal?

2:22  Do you forbid adultery, and yet commit adultery? Do you loathe idols, and yet plunder temples?

2:23  Boasting, as you do, of your law, do you dishonour God by breaking the law?

2:24  For, as scripture says — ‘The Gentiles insult God's name because of you’!

2:25  Circumcision has its value, if you are obeying the law. But, if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision is no better than uncircumcision.

2:26  If, then, an uncircumcised man pays regard to the requirements of the law, will not he, although not circumcised, be regarded by God as if he were?

2:27  Indeed, the person who, owing to his birth, remains uncircumcised, and yet scrupulously obeys the law, will condemn you, who, for all your written law and your circumcision, are yet a breaker of the law.

2:28  For a man who is only a Jew outwardly is not a real Jew; nor is outward bodily circumcision real circumcision. The real Jew is the person who is a Jew in soul;

2:29  and the real circumcision is the circumcision of the heart, a spiritual and not a literal thing. Such a person wins praise from God, though not from people.