Romans 3:4-19

⁴Of course not! Rather, let God be found true, but every man a liar; just as it is written: “That you may be justified in your words, and may overcome when you are judged.”

⁵Now if our unrighteousness highlights God's righteousness, what shall we say? God is not unrighteous for inflicting His wrath, is He? (I speak as a man.)

⁶Of course not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world?

⁷Still, if the truth of God abounded to His glory by my falsehood, just why am I still judged as a sinner?

⁸However, we must not say, “Let us do evil so that good may come” (as some people slanderously claim that we do)—their condemnation is well deserved!

⁹What then? Are we any better? Not at all! For we have already charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.

¹⁰Just as it is written: “No one is righteous, not even one;

¹¹there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

¹²All have turned aside, together they have been made useless; there is no one who shows kindness, no, not so much as one.”

¹³“Their throat is an opened grave; they habitually deceive with their tongues.” “Viper's venom is under their lips”;

¹⁴“whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”

¹⁵“Their feet are swift to shed blood;

¹⁶ruin and wretchedness are in their paths,

¹⁷and the way of peace they have not known.”

¹⁸“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world become accountable to God.