Romans 2:17–29

The Jews and the Law

¹⁷What about you? You call yourself a Jew; you depend on the Law and boast about God; ¹⁸you know what God wants you to do, and you have learnt from the Law to choose what is right; ¹⁹you are sure that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in darkness, ²⁰an instructor for the foolish, and a teacher for the ignorant. You are certain that in the Law you have the full content of knowledge and of truth. ²¹You teach others—why don’t you teach yourself? You preach, “Do not steal”—but do you yourself steal? ²²You say, “Do not commit adultery”—but do you commit adultery? You detest idols—but do you rob temples? ²³You boast about having God’s law—but do you bring shame on God by breaking his law? ^24*The scripture says, “Because of you Jews, the Gentiles speak evil of God.”

²⁵If you obey the Law, your circumcision is of value; but if you disobey the Law, you might as well never have been circumcised. ²⁶If the Gentile, who is not circumcised, obeys the commands of the Law, will God not regard him as though he were circumcised? ²⁷And so you Jews will be condemned by the Gentiles because you break the Law, even though you have it written down and are circumcised; but they obey the Law, even though they are not physically circumcised. ²⁸After all, who is a real Jew, truly circumcised? It is not the man who is a Jew on the outside, whose circumcision is a physical thing. ^29*Rather, the real Jew is the person who is a Jew on the inside, that is, whose heart has been circumcised, and this is the work of God’s Spirit, not of the written Law. Such a person receives praise from God, not from human beings.