Romans 3:9-20

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.

20God's Law shows people clearly that they have done wrong things. Nobody can become right with God because they obey that Law.