Romans 3:23-28

²³We all went wrong and did bad things. None of us is as good as God wants us to be.

²⁴But Jesus Christ took the blame for us. He paid the cost for those bad things that we did, so now God is really good to us and says that we are all right now, he will not blame us any more. And this doesn’t cost us anything.

²⁵God sent Jesus to die for us so that, if we believe that he died for us, God isn’t angry with us any more. Jesus let people kill him and spill out his blood, and now, if we trust him, God says we are all right. In this way God shows that he was right and fair in the past, at those times when he didn’t punish people for the bad things they did,

²⁶and he shows that he is fair at this time now when he tells everyone that believes in Jesus that they are all right now.

²⁷So none of us can talk up big about anything that we ever did. The only thing that matters is this, we believe in Jesus.

²⁸It is like this. We believe in Jesus, so God tells us, “You are all right now.” But if we only think about that law and try to do the things it says, God will not tell us that we are all right.