Romans 3:7-22

⁷But someone might object and say to me, “The fact that God truly keeps his promises becomes very clear/evident because of my not doing what God has commanded. But the result is that people praise God! So ◄God should no longer say that I should be punished {that he should punish me} on account of my having sinned!/why should God still say that I should be punished {that he should punish me} on account of my having sinned?► RHQ

⁸If what you, Paul, say is true, then ◄we might as well/it is all right for us to► do evil things in order that good things like that will result! For example, then people will praise God!” Some people speak evil about me by their falsely saying that I say such things. God will fairly/justly punish people who say such things about me!

⁹If someone would ask, “ Shall we conclude that God will treat us Jews more favorably and will treat the non-Jews less favorably RHQ?” I would reply that we can certainly not conclude that! I have already shown you that all people, the Jews and also the non-Jews, have sinned and so they deserve to be punished { that God will punish them} PRS.

¹⁰The following words that are written {prophets have written} in the Scriptures support this, No person is righteous. There is not even one righteous person!

¹¹There is no one who understands how to live properly (OR, about God). There is no one who seeks/desires to know God!

¹²Absolutely everyone has turned away MET from God. God considers them depraved (OR, Everyone has become useless to God). There is no one who acts righteously; no, there is not even one!

¹³What people say MTY is foul/bad, like the smell that comes from a grave that has been {that people have} opened MET. By what people say MTY, they deceive people. By what they say MTY they injure people, just like the poison of snakes injures people MET.

¹⁴They are continually ◄cursing/asking God to do harmful things to► others and saying ◄cruel/harsh/hateful► things MTY.

¹⁵They ◄go quickly/are eager► to murder people MTY.

¹⁶Wherever they go, they ruin everything and make people miserable MTY.

¹⁷They have not/never known how to live peacefully with other people.

¹⁸They absolutely refuse to fear/reverence God SYN!

¹⁹Furthermore, we know that it is to Jewish people, who are required to obey God's laws, that Moses wrote those laws PRS. We can infer from this that there are no Jews or non-Jews SYN who are able to say anything in reply to God's saying that he will punish them for having sinned. God has declared everyone in the world MTY guilty!

²⁰It is not because people have done the things that God's laws require that God will ◄erase the record of their sins/declare them no longer guilty for sin►, because no one has done those things completely. In fact, the result of our knowing God's laws is that we know clearly that we have sinned (OR, are sinful).

²¹But God's ◄erasing the record of our sins/declaring us no longer guilty► does not depend on our obeying the laws that he gave Moses. It has now been { God has now} revealed to us how he erases the record of our sins by a different way. It was written about by Moses { Moses wrote about it} in the laws PRS God gave him, and it was also written about by the prophets {the prophets also wrote about it}.

²²God erases the record of our sins because we trust in what Jesus Christ has done for us. God does this for every person who trusts in Christ, because he considers that there is no difference between Jews and non-Jews.