Chapter 3

What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?

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

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

By no means: verily let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mayest be justified in thy sayings, and mayest overcome when thou art judged.

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

By no means: for then how shall God judge the world?

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

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

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;

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

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

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

Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood.

Destruction and misery are in their ways:

And the way of peace have they not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now we know that whatever things 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.

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.

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

Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ to all, and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference:

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

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

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;

To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he may be just, and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus.

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? No; but by the law of faith.

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

Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:

Seeing it is one God who will justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.

Do we then make void the law through faith? By no means: but we establish the law.