For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
Parallel translations
- WEB For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
- KJV For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.
- BSB Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
- NASB For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a violator of the Law, your circumcision has turned into uncircumcision.
- NLT The Jewish ceremony of circumcision has value only if you obey God’s law. But if you don’t obey God’s law, you are no better off than an uncircumcised Gentile.
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
Circumcision benefits only if you keep the law; if you break it, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. The covenant sign means nothing without covenant obedience.
Overview
Paul addresses circumcision, the chief sign of Jewish covenant identity. He argues that its value depends on keeping the law; a lawbreaker's circumcision counts for nothing. The outward sign cannot substitute for the inward reality of obedience and faith. This relativizes ethnic and ritual privilege and points toward the true circumcision of the heart in v.29.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Gal 5:3–6Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
- Jer 4:4Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
- Acts 7:51“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do.
- Gal 6:15For in Christ Jesus neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
- Jer 9:25–26“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will punish all those who are circumcised only in their flesh:
- Deut 30:6Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your offspring, to love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live.
- Rom 2:23You who glory in the law, through your disobedience of the law do you dishonor God?
- Rom 2:28For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh;
- Eph 2:11–12Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “uncircumcision” by that which is called “circumcision”, (in the flesh, made by hands);
- Rom 4:11–12He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them.
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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 2:25 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.