Romans 2

¹ So no matter who you are, if you pass judgement you have no excuse. It is yourself that you condemnwhen you judge others, since you behave in the same way as those you are condemning.

² We are well aware that people who behave like that are justly condemned by God.

³ But you -- when you judge those who behave like this while you are doing the same yourself -- do youthink you wil escape God's condemnation?

⁴ Or are you not disregarding his abundant goodness, tolerance and patience, failing to realise that this generosity of God is meant to bring you to repentance?

⁵ Your stubborn refusal to repent is only storing up retribution for yourself on that Day of retribution whenGod's just verdicts wil be made known.

⁶ He wil repay everyone as their deeds deserve.

⁷ For those who aimed for glory and honour and immortality by persevering in doing good, there will beeternal life;

⁸ but for those who out of jealousy have taken for their guide not truth but injustice, there wil be the furyof retribution.

⁹ Trouble and distress wil come to every human being who does evil -- Jews first, but Greeks as wel ;

¹⁰ glory and honour and peace will come to everyone who does good -- Jews first, but Greeks as wel .

¹¹ There is no favouritism with God.

¹² Al those who have sinned without the Law wil perish without the Law; and those under the Law whohave sinned wil be judged by the Law.

¹³ For the ones that God wil justify are not those who have heard the Law but those who have kept theLaw.

¹⁴ So, when gentiles, not having the Law, still through their own innate sense behave as the Lawcommands, then, even though they have no Law, they are a law for themselves.

¹⁵ They can demonstrate the effect of the Law engraved on their hearts, to which their own consciencebears witness; since they are aware of various considerations, some of which accuse them, while others providethem with a defence . . . on the day when,

¹⁶ according to the gospel that I preach, God, through Jesus Christ, judges all human secrets.

¹⁷ If you can cal yourself a Jew, and you real y trust in the Law, and are proud of your God,

¹⁸ and know his wil , and tel right from wrong because you have been taught by the Law;

¹⁹ if you are confident that you are a guide to the blind and a beacon to those in the dark,

²⁰ that you can teach the ignorant and instruct the unlearned because the Law embodies all knowledgeand all truth-

²¹ so then, in teaching others, do you teach yourself as wel ? You preach that there is to be no stealing,but do you steal?

²² You say that adultery is forbidden, but do you commit adultery? You detest the worship of objects, butdo you desecrate holy things yourself?

²³ If, while you are boasting of the Law, you disobey it, then you are bringing God into contempt.

²⁴ As scripture says: It is your fault that the name of God is held in contempt among the nations.

²⁵ Circumcision has its value if you keep the Law; but if you go on breaking the Law, you are no morecircumcised than the uncircumcised.

²⁶ And if an uncircumcised man keeps the commands of the Law, wil not his uncircumcised state countas circumcision?

²⁷ More, the man who, in his native uncircumcised state, keeps the Law, is a condemnation of you, who,by your concentration on the letter and on circumcision, actual y break the Law.

²⁸ Being a Jew is not only having the outward appearance of a Jew, and circumcision is not only avisible physical operation.

²⁹ The real Jew is the one who is inwardly a Jew, and real circumcision is in the heart, a thing not of theletter but of the spirit. He may not be praised by any human being, but he wil be praised by God.