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But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
Romans 2:5 · New Living Translation
Parallel translations
  • WEB But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;
  • KJV But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
  • BSB But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
  • NKJV But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
  • NASB But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,

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

A hard, unrepentant heart stores up wrath for the day of God's righteous judgment. Refusing to repent only increases one's coming condemnation.

Overview

Paul warns that impenitence is not neutral; it 'treasures up' wrath like accumulating a fearful debt against 'the day of wrath.' The contrast with v.4 is stark: God's patience meant for repentance becomes, when spurned, the occasion for greater judgment. The 'righteous judgment of God' will be perfectly just, exposing the heart's true condition.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 31

  • Eccl 12:14For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil.
  • Rom 1:18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
  • Rom 2:2–3We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.
  • Heb 3:15while it is said, “Today if you will hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion.”
  • 2 Pet 3:7But the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
  • Jude 1:6Angels who didn’t keep their first domain, but deserted their own dwelling place, he has kept in everlasting bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.
  • Deut 32:34“Isn’t this laid up in store with me, sealed up among my treasures?
  • Rom 9:22What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction,
  • 2 Chr 30:8Now don’t be stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to Yahweh, and enter into his sanctuary, which he has sanctified forever, and serve Yahweh your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you.
  • 1 Sam 6:6Why then do you harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When he had worked wonderfully among them, didn’t they let the people go, and they departed?
  • Heb 3:13but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called “today”; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
  • Zech 7:11–12But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear.
  • Heb 4:7he again defines a certain day, today, saying through David so long a time afterward (just as has been said), “Today if you will hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.”
  • 2 Pet 2:9the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment;
  • Ps 110:5The Lord is at your right hand. He will crush kings in the day of his wrath.
  • Rev 6:17for the great day of his wrath has come; and who is able to stand?”
  • Prov 11:4Riches don’t profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.
  • Ezek 3:7But the house of Israel will not listen to you, for they will not listen to me; for all the house of Israel are obstinate and hard-hearted.
  • Prov 29:1He who is often rebuked and stiffens his neck will be destroyed suddenly, with no remedy.
  • 2 Chr 36:13He also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God; but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart against turning to Yahweh, the God of Israel.
  • Rom 11:25For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,
  • Dan 5:20But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him:
  • Jas 5:3Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days.
  • Job 21:30that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, That they are led out to the day of wrath?
  • Deut 2:30But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him; for Yahweh your God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into your hand, as it is today.
  • Josh 11:20For it was of Yahweh to harden their hearts, to come against Israel in battle, that he might utterly destroy them, that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as Yahweh commanded Moses.
  • Ps 95:8Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
  • Isa 48:4Because I knew that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your brow brass;
  • Exod 8:15But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and didn’t listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken.
  • Amos 3:10“Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says Yahweh, “Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces.”
  • Exod 14:17Behold, I myself will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall go in after them: and I will get myself honor over Pharaoh, and over all his armies, over his chariots, and over his horsemen.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (5)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Romans videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Romans 2:5YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on RomansMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

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 2:5 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.