The Jews are censured, who make their boast of the law and keep it not.
He declares who are the true Jews.
2:1. Wherefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that
judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. For
thou dost the same things which thou judgest.
2:2. For we know that the judgment of God is, according to truth,
against them that do such things.
2:3. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them who do such things
and dost the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
2:4. Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and patience and
longsuffering? Knowest thou not that the benignity of God leadeth thee
to penance?
2:5. But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest
up to thyself wrath, against the day of wrath and revelation of the just
judgment of God:
2:6. Who will render to every man according to his works.
2:7. To them indeed who, according to patience in good work, seek glory
and honour and incorruption, eternal life:
2:8. But to them that are contentious and who obey not the truth but
give credit to iniquity, wrath and indignation.
2:9. Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that worketh evil:
of the Jew first, and also of the Greek.
2:10. But glory and honour and peace to every one that worketh good: to
the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
2:11. For there is no respect of persons with God.
2:12. For whosoever have sinned without the law shall perish without the
law: and whosoever have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.
2:13. For not the hearers of the law are just before God: but the doers
of the law shall be justified.
2:14. For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those
things that are of the law; these, having not the law, are a law to
themselves.
2:15. Who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience bearing witness to them: and their thoughts between
themselves accusing or also defending one another,
2:16. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus
Christ, according to my gospel.
2:17. But if thou art called a Jew and restest in the law and makest thy
boast of God,
2:18. And knowest his will and approvest the more profitable things,
being instructed by the law:
2:19. Art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light
of them that are in darkness,
2:20. An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, having the
form of knowledge and of truth in the law.
2:21. Thou therefore, that teachest another, teachest not thyself: thou,
that preachest that men should not steal, stealest.
2:22. Thou, that sayest men should not commit adultery, committest
adultery: thou, that abhorrest idols, committest sacrilege:
2:23. Thou, that makest thy boast of the law, by transgression of the
law dishonourest God.
2:24. (For the name of God through you is blasphemed among the Gentiles,
as it is written.)
2:25. Circumcision profiteth indeed, if thou keep the law: but if thou
be a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.
2:26. If then, the uncircumcised keep the justices of the law, shall not
this uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?
2:27. And shall not that which by nature is uncircumcision, if it fulfil
the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision art a
transgressor of the law?
2:28. For it is not he is a Jew, who is so outwardly: nor is that
circumcision which is outwardly in the flesh.
2:29. But he is a Jew that is one inwardly and the circumcision is that
of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter: whose praise is not of
men, but of God.