Romans 3:1-19

1So someone may ask, ‘Does it help a person if they are a Jew, rather than a Gentile? Does it help a person if someone has circumcised them?’

2Yes, it helps in many ways. The first is that God chose to give his messages to the Jewish people.

3But you may say, ‘Some Jews did not believe God's messages as they should have done. Because of that, maybe God will not do what he said he would do.’

4No, certainly it does not mean that! God will always do what he says. He will always say what is true, even if everyone in the world should tell lies. This is what is written in the Bible: ‘Your message is true. It shows that you are right. People may say that you are wrong. But it will always be clear that you are right.’

5Maybe some people may say, ‘The wrong things that we do show more clearly that God is always right. So perhaps God is wrong to punish us.’

6That is not true! God always decides what is right and fair. That is why he is able to judge everyone in the world.

7Someone might also say, ‘When I tell lies, that shows how great and good God is. My lies show more clearly that God always says what is true. So God should not say that I am a bad person. He should not punish me.’

8But if that is true, you could also say, ‘We should do more and more bad things. Then something good will happen as a result.’ Some people even say that is the message which I teach. But if they say that, they are insulting me. It is right that God should punish those people.

9So then, what do we learn from that? We cannot say that we Jews are better than other people. No, certainly we cannot say that! I have said already that sin has power over everyone. That is true for both Jews and Gentiles.

10This is written in the Bible: ‘There is nobody who is right with God. There is not even one person who is like that.

11There is nobody who understands what is true. There is nobody who wants to worship God.

12Everyone has turned away from God. All people have become completely bad. Nobody does what is good or kind. There is not even one person who is like that.

13Bad words come out of their mouth, like a very bad smell. They tell lies all the time, so that people do wrong things. The things that they say hurt people, like a snake's poison.

14They are always saying bad things against people, because they want to cause trouble for them.

15They hurry to kill people.

16Everywhere they go, they destroy things. They only make people very sad.

17They have never known how to live in peace.

18They refuse to respect God in any way.’

19So, we know that God's Law belongs to the Jews. God told them to obey everything that his Law teaches. As a result, nobody can say: ‘God should not punish me.’ Everybody in the world must stand in front of God and he will judge them.