Romans 3-4

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

3 Then what advantage remains to the Jew? [How is he favored?] Or what is the value or benefit of circumcision?

² Much in every way. To begin with, to the Jews were entrusted the oracles (the brief communications, the intentions, the utterances) of God.^(A)

³ What if some did not believe and were without faith? Does their lack of faith and their faithlessness nullify and make ineffective and void the faithfulness of God and His fidelity [to His Word]?

⁴ By no means! Let God be found true though every human being is false and a liar, as it is written, That You may be justified and shown to be upright in what You say, and prevail when You are judged [by sinful men].^(B)

⁵ But if our unrighteousness thus establishes and exhibits the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust and wrong to inflict His wrath upon us [Jews]? I speak in a [purely] human way.

⁶ By no means! Otherwise, how could God judge the world?

⁷ But [you say] if through my falsehood God’s integrity is magnified and advertised and abounds to His glory, why am I still being judged as a sinner?

⁸ And why should we not do evil that good may come?—as some slanderously charge us with teaching. Such [false teaching] is justly condemned by them.

⁹ Well then, are we [Jews] superior and better off than they? No, not at all. We have already charged that all men, both Jews and Greeks (Gentiles), are under sin [held down by and subject to its power and control].

¹⁰ As it is written, None is righteous, just and truthful and upright and conscientious, no, not one.^(C)

¹¹ No one understands [no one intelligently discerns or comprehends]; no one seeks out God.^(D)

¹² All have turned aside; together they have gone wrong and have become unprofitable and worthless; no one does right, not even one!

¹³ Their throat is a yawning grave; they use their tongues to deceive (to mislead and to deal treacherously). The venom of asps is beneath their lips.^(E)

¹⁴ Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.^(F)

¹⁵ Their feet are swift to shed blood.

¹⁶ Destruction [as it dashes them to pieces] and misery mark their ways.

¹⁷ And they have no experience of the way of peace [they know nothing about peace, for a peaceful way they do not even recognize].^(G)

¹⁸ There is no [reverential] fear of God before their eyes.^(H)

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that [the murmurs and excuses of] every mouth may be hushed and all the world may be held accountable to God.

²⁰ For no person will be justified (made righteous, acquitted, and judged acceptable) in His sight by observing the works prescribed by the Law. For [the real function of] the Law is to make men recognize and be conscious of sin [^[a]not mere perception, but an acquaintance with sin which works toward repentance, faith, and holy character].

²¹ But now the righteousness of God has been revealed independently and altogether apart from the Law, although actually it is attested by the Law and the Prophets,

²² Namely, the righteousness of God which comes by believing with personal trust and confident reliance on Jesus Christ (the Messiah). [And it is meant] for all who believe. For there is no distinction,

²³ Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory ^[b]which God bestows and receives.

²⁴ [All] are justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His grace (His unmerited favor and mercy), through the redemption which is [provided] in Christ Jesus,

²⁵ Whom God put forward [^[c]before the eyes of all] as a mercy seat and propitiation by His blood [the cleansing and life-giving sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation, to be received] through faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over and ignored former sins without punishment.

²⁶ It was to demonstrate and prove at the present time (^[d]in the now season) that He Himself is righteous and that He justifies and accepts as righteous him who has [true] faith in Jesus.

²⁷ Then what becomes of [our] pride and [our] boasting? It is excluded (banished, ruled out entirely). On what principle? [On the principle] of doing good deeds? No, but on the principle of faith.

²⁸ For we hold that a man is justified and made upright by faith independent of and distinctly apart from good deeds (works of the Law). [The observance of the Law has nothing to do with justification.]

²⁹ Or is God merely [the God] of Jews? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,

³⁰ Since it is one and the same God Who will justify the circumcised by faith [^[e]which germinated from Abraham] and the uncircumcised through their [newly acquired] faith. [For it is the same trusting faith in both cases, a firmly relying faith in Jesus Christ].

³¹ Do we then by [this] faith make the Law of no effect, overthrow it or make it a dead letter? Certainly not! On the contrary, we confirm and establish and uphold the Law.

4 [But] if so, what shall we say about Abraham, our forefather humanly speaking—[what did he] find out? [How does this affect his position, and what was gained by him?]

² For if Abraham was justified (^[f]established as just by acquittal from guilt) by good works [that he did, then] he has grounds for boasting. But not before God!

³ For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed in (trusted in) God, and it was credited to his account as righteousness (right living and right standing with God).^(I)

⁴ Now to a laborer, his wages are not counted as a favor or a gift, but as an obligation (something owed to him).

⁵ But to one who, not working [by the Law], trusts (believes fully) in Him Who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness (the standing acceptable to God).

⁶ Thus David ^[g]congratulates the man and pronounces a blessing on him to whom God credits righteousness apart from the works he does:

⁷ Blessed and happy and ^[h]to be envied are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered up and completely buried.

⁸ Blessed and happy and ^[i]to be envied is the person of whose sin the Lord will take no account nor reckon it against him.^(J)

⁹ Is this blessing (happiness) then meant only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.

¹⁰ How then was it credited [to him]? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.

¹¹ He received the mark of circumcision as a token or an evidence [and] seal of the righteousness which he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised—[faith] so that he was to be made the father of all who [truly] believe, though without circumcision, and who thus have righteousness (right standing with God) imputed to them and credited to their account,

¹² As well as [that he be made] the father of those circumcised persons who are not merely circumcised, but also walk in the way of that faith which our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

¹³ For the promise to Abraham or his posterity, that he should inherit the world, did not come through [observing the commands of] the Law but through the righteousness of faith.^(K)

¹⁴ If it is the adherents of the Law who are to be the heirs, then faith is made futile and empty of all meaning and the promise [of God] is made void (is annulled and has no power).

¹⁵ For the Law results in [divine] wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression [of it either].

¹⁶ Therefore, [inheriting] the promise is the outcome of faith and depends [entirely] on faith, in order that it might be given as an act of grace (unmerited favor), to make it stable and valid and guaranteed to all his descendants—not only to the devotees and adherents of the Law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, who is [thus] the father of us all.

¹⁷ As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. [He was appointed our father] in the sight of God in Whom he believed, Who gives life to the dead and speaks of the nonexistent things that [He has foretold and promised] as if they [already] existed.^(L)

¹⁸ [For Abraham, human reason for] hope being gone, hoped in faith that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been promised, So [numberless] shall your descendants be.^(M)

¹⁹ He did not weaken in faith when he considered the [utter] impotence of his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or [when he considered] the barrenness of Sarah’s [deadened] womb.^(N)

²⁰ No unbelief or distrust made him waver (doubtingly question) concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong and was empowered by faith as he gave praise and glory to God,

²¹ Fully satisfied and assured that God was able and mighty to keep His word and to do what He had promised.

²² That is why his faith was credited to him as righteousness (right standing with God).

²³ But [the words], It was credited to him, were written not for his sake alone,

²⁴ But [they were written] for our sakes too. [Righteousness, standing acceptable to God] will be granted and credited to us also who believe in (trust in, adhere to, and rely on) God, Who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,

²⁵ Who was betrayed and put to death because of our misdeeds and was raised to secure our justification (our ^[j]acquittal), [making our account balance and absolving us from all guilt before God].