Letters to the Churches

and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in darkness,

a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth;

thou therefore that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?

thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou rob temples?

thou who gloriest in the law, through thy transgression of the law dishonorest thou God?

For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, even as it is written.

For circumcision indeed profiteth, if thou be a doer of the law: but if thou be a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision is become uncircumcision.

If therefore the uncircumcision keep the ordinances of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be reckoned for circumcision?

and shall not the uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who with the letter and circumcision art a transgressor of the law?

For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh:

but 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 of men, but of God.

What advantage then hath the Jew? or what is the profit of circumcision?

Much every way: first of all, that they were intrusted with the oracles of God.

For what if some were without faith? shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God?

God forbid: yea, let God be found true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy words, And mightest prevail when thou comest into judgment.

But if our unrighteousness commendeth the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who visiteth with wrath? (I speak after the manner of men.)

God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?

But if the truth of God through my lie abounded unto his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?

and why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), Let us do evil, that good may come? whose condemnation is just.

What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we before laid to the charge both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin;

as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one;

There is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God;

They have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable; There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one:

Their throat is an open sepulchre; With their tongues they have used deceit: The poison of asps is under their lips:

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: