See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off.
Parallel translations
- KJV Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
- BSB Take notice, therefore, of the kindness and severity of God: severity to those who fell, but kindness to you, if you continue in His kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
- ESV Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
- NKJV Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
- NASB See then the kindness and severity of God: to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; for otherwise you too will be cut off.
- NLT Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is severe toward those who disobeyed, but kind to you if you continue to trust in his kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Consider both God's kindness and severity: severity to those who fell, kindness to you, if you continue in it.
Overview
Paul holds together two aspects of God's character that must not be separated: his goodness toward those who trust him and his severity in judgment toward unbelief. The Gentiles' continued enjoyment of grace is bound up with continuing in faith, 'otherwise you also will be cut off.' Faithful interpreters take this as a real, searching warning that genuine, saving faith perseveres, consistent with God's preserving of his own.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 31
- Heb 3:14For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm to the end:
- Heb 3:6but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house; whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.
- 1 Cor 15:2by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.
- John 15:2Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
- Rev 2:5Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I am coming to you swiftly, and will move your lamp stand out of its place, unless you repent.
- Gal 6:9Let us not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don’t give up.
- Rom 2:4–5Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
- Heb 10:35–39Therefore don’t throw away your boldness, which has a great reward.
- Rom 2:7to those who by perseverance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and incorruptibility, eternal life;
- Jude 1:20–21But you, beloved, keep building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.
- Rom 9:22–23What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction,
- Acts 14:22confirming the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that through many afflictions we must enter into God’s Kingdom.
- Heb 10:23let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering; for he who promised is faithful.
- John 8:31Jesus therefore said to those Jews who had believed him, “If you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples.
- Isa 66:14You will see it, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones will flourish like the tender grass. Yahweh’s hand will be known among his servants; and he will have indignation against his enemies.
- Ezek 33:17–19Yet the children of your people say, The way of the Lord is not equal: but as for them, their way is not equal.
- Luke 8:15That in the good ground, these are such as in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it tightly, and produces fruit with patience.
- Acts 11:23who, when he had come, and had seen the grace of God, was glad. He exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they should remain near to the Lord.
- Matt 3:9–10Don’t think to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
- 1 Th 3:8For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord.
- Ezek 18:24“But when the righteous turns away from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of his righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered. In his trespass that he has trespassed, and in his sin that he has sinned, in them he shall die.
- Ezek 3:20“Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at your hand.
- Deut 32:39–43“See now that I myself am he. There is no god with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.
- Ps 58:10–11The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked;
- Num 14:18–22‘Yahweh is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.’
- Josh 23:15–16It shall happen that as all the good things have come on you of which Yahweh your God spoke to you, so Yahweh will bring on you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land which Yahweh your God has given you,
- Ps 136:15–22But overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea; for his loving kindness endures forever:
- 1 Th 3:5For this cause I also, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, sent that I might know your faith, for fear that by any means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor would have been in vain.
- John 15:4–10Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me.
- Ps 78:49–52He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil.
- 1 Jn 2:19They went out from us, but they didn’t belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have continued with us. But they left, that they might be revealed that none of them belong to us.
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Christ at the center
Paul unfolds the gospel in full: Christ our righteousness received by faith, the second Adam in whom many are made righteous, in whose death and resurrection we are buried and raised.
How Romans 11:22 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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