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The Letter to the Romans 2

2 Consequently, any one of you who judges another person cannot excuse yourself at all when God condemns you. This is because you are actually condemning yourself when you judge someone else, since you who judge someone else do the exact same things that they do! 2 Certainly, we acknowledge that God will correctly judge those people who continue doing such inappropriate things. 3 You who judge the people who continue to do such inappropriate things while you do the exact same things yourself should certainly not think that you can escape when God judges you! 4 You who despise how abundantly kind, tolerant, and patient God is must certainly know that God’s kind acts are meant to cause you to repent. 5 Instead, because you are stubborn and refuse to repent, you are causing God to punish you even more severely. This will happen when God punishes sinners and reveals how justly he judges.

6 God will justly reward or punish everyone for whatever they do. 7 Living eternally is how God repays those people who keep striving for God to glorify, honor, and preserve them forever. They do this by persisting in doing what is good. 8 By contrast, God will fiercely punish those people who refuse to do what he says is true and right because they are selfishly ambitious. 9 God will cause every human being who does what is evil to become distressed and troubled. This will happen especially to the Jew who does what is evil and also to everyone else who does so. 10 By contrast, God will glorify, honor, and reconcile every person who does what is good. This will happen especially to the Jew who does what is good and also to everyone else who does so. 11 These things are true because God is impartial.

12 We know this about God, because he will punish forever all people who sin without knowing the laws that God gave the Jews even though they do not know those laws. At the same time, God will judge according to his laws whoever sins while knowing those laws. 13 God will judge everyone who sins because God does not make righteous those people who only hear his laws. Rather, God will make righteous those people who obey his laws. 14 God will judge everyone who sins because whenever nations which do not know the laws that God gave the Jews naturally obey rules from those laws, they prove that they know laws within their minds even though they do not know God’s laws. 15 By naturally following some laws that God gave through Moses, these people demonstrate that God has made each person aware of how to obey his laws. What they think shows that this is true, in that what each of them thinks will either accuse or even defend their actions. 16 This will happen at the time when God finally judges the hidden thoughts that people think. God’s good news that I proclaim teaches that he will judge mankind through the Messiah Jesus.

17 Now, I am addressing you who identify yourselves as Jews: You depend on the laws God gave you to avoid God’s judgment. You brag that you know God. 18 You know what God wants. Also, since some people have taught you God’s law, you approve of what is superior. 19 You have even convinced yourselves that you Jews are the only ones who can teach those non-Jewish people who do not know about God. You are convinced that only you can enable ignorant people to understand who God is. 20 You have convinced yourself that you should instruct people who are foolish. You have convinced yourself that you should teach people who are as ignorant as infants. You think this way because you know the laws God gave the Jews, which fully contain what we can know and what is true. 21 So even though you Jews have convinced yourself that these things are true, you should teach yourselves to do what you teach others to do because you don’t do those things! You keep telling others that they should not steal, but you steal! 22 You keep telling people not to have sexual relations with people whom they did not marry, but you do so! You supposedly detest idols, but you ransack temples that contain idols! 23 You brag about how well you understand the laws God gave you, but you disgrace God by disobeying those laws! 24 These things are true because it is what the prophet Isaiah meant when he wrote in the Scriptures, “The nations say bad things about God because of how wickedly you Jews act.”

25 You Jews who have sinned will be judged because, being circumcised only benefits you if you obey the laws God gave you. However, if you disobey those laws, being circumcised does not benefit you at all. 26 So then, if uncircumcised people obey what God requires in the laws he gave the Jews, God will regard those uncircumcised people as being circumcised. 27 And people who are physically uncircumcised yet fully obey the laws from God will judge you Jews! Although you know the written rules God gave the Jews and you are circumcised, you have disobeyed those laws! 28 This is true because a true Jew is not someone who does Jewish rituals that people can see. Similarly, people cannot see true circumcision on a person’s body. 29 Rather, a true Jew is one by means of something that people cannot see. True circumcision happens in a person’s mind and the Holy Spirit does it. Obeying the written rules God gave the Jews cannot do it. God commends a true Jew, but other people do not.

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