Romans 2:13-26

¹³It is not those who hear the words of a Law that are righteous before God, but it is those who obey it that will be pronounced righteous.

¹⁴When Gentiles, who have no Law, do instinctively what the Law requires, they, though they have no Law, are a Law to themselves;

¹⁵for they show the demands of the Law written on their hearts; their consciences corroborating it, while in their thoughts they argue either in self-accusation or, it may be, in self-defence —

¹⁶on the day when God passes judgement on people's inmost lives, as the good news that I tell declares that he will do through Christ Jesus.

¹⁷But, perhaps, you bear the name of ‘Jew,’ and are relying on Law, and boast of belonging to God, and understand his will,

¹⁸and, having been carefully instructed from the Law, have learnt to appreciate the finer moral distinctions.

¹⁹Perhaps you are confident that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in the dark, an instructor of the unintelligent,

²⁰and a teacher of the childish, because in the Law you possess the outline of all knowledge and truth.

²¹Why, then, you teacher of others, don't you teach yourself? Do you preach against stealing, and yet steal?

²²Do you forbid adultery, and yet commit adultery? Do you loathe idols, and yet plunder temples?

²³Boasting, as you do, of your Law, do you dishonour God by breaking the Law?

²⁴For, as scripture says — ‘The Gentiles insult God's name because of you’!

²⁵Circumcision has its value, if you are obeying the Law. But, if you are a breaker of the Law, your circumcision is no better than uncircumcision.

²⁶If, then, an uncircumcised man pays regard to the requirements of the Law, won't he, although not circumcised, be regarded by God as if he were?