Then what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the profit of circumcision?
Parallel translations
- KJV What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?
- BSB What, then, is the advantage of being a Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?
- NKJV What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision?
- NASB Then what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?
- NLT Then what’s the advantage of being a Jew? Is there any value in the ceremony of circumcision?
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
If judgment is impartial, what advantage does being a Jew or being circumcised offer? Paul raises the natural objection to his argument.
Overview
Having shown that Jews and Gentiles alike face judgment, Paul anticipates the objection: does Jewish identity then count for nothing? This rhetorical question, characteristic of Paul's diatribe style, lets him clarify rather than dismiss the genuine privileges God gave Israel. It keeps his argument from being misread as denying God's covenant faithfulness.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Rom 2:25–29For 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.
- Gen 25:32Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die. What good is the birthright to me?”
- Eccl 6:11For there are many words that create vanity. What does that profit man?
- Eccl 6:8For what advantage has the wise more than the fool? What has the poor man, that knows how to walk before the living?
- Heb 13:9Don’t be carried away by various and strange teachings, for it is good that the heart be established by grace, not by food, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.
- Isa 1:11–15“What are the multitude of your sacrifices to me?”, says Yahweh. “I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed animals. I don’t delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of male goats.
- 1 Cor 15:32If I fought with animals at Ephesus for human purposes, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, then “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
- Mal 3:14You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God;’ and ‘What profit is it that we have followed his instructions, and that we have walked mournfully before Yahweh of Armies?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 3:1 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.