In fact, uncircumcised Gentiles who keep God’s law will condemn you Jews who are circumcised and possess God’s law but don’t obey it.
Parallel translations
- WEB Won’t the uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfills the law, judge you, who with the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law?
- KJV And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law?
- BSB The one who is physically uncircumcised yet keeps the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.
- NKJV And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law?
- NASB And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a violator of the Law?
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
The physically uncircumcised who keep the law will condemn the law-breaking Jew who has the letter and circumcision. Outward credentials cannot shield a disobedient heart.
Overview
Paul argues that an obedient Gentile, though uncircumcised, will stand in judgment over the disobedient Jew who has both the written law and circumcision yet breaks the law. Possessing the 'letter' and the sign without obedience brings condemnation, not vindication. This further dismantles confidence in external privilege and prepares for the definition of a true Jew.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Matt 12:41–42The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, someone greater than Jonah is here.
- Rom 8:4that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
- 2 Cor 3:6who also made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
- Rom 2:29but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.
- Rom 7:6–8But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.
- Rom 13:10Love doesn’t harm a neighbor. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.
- Gal 5:14For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
- Matt 3:15But Jesus, answering, said to him, “Allow it now, for this is the fitting way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed him.
- Heb 11:3By faith, we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which are visible.
- Matt 5:17–20“Don’t think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill.
- Acts 13:22When he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, to whom he also testified, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’
- Rom 2:20a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth.
- Ezek 16:48–52As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as you have done, you and your daughters.
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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 2:27 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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