For I am not ashamed of the Good News, since it is God’s powerful means of bringing salvation to everyone who keeps on trusting, to the Jew especially, but equally to the Gentile.

because, although they know who God is, they do not glorify him as God or thank him. On the contrary, they have become futile in their thinking; and their undiscerning hearts have become darkened.

In other words, since they have not considered God worth knowing, God has given them up to worthless ways of thinking; so that they do improper things.

They know well enough God’s righteous decree that people who do such things deserve to die; yet not only do they keep doing them, but they applaud others who do the same.

For God does not show favoritism.

For it is not merely the hearers of Torah whom God considers righteous; rather, it is the doers of what Torah says who will be made righteous in God’s sight.

then, you who teach others, don’t you teach yourself? Preaching, “Thou shalt not steal,” do you steal?

Saying, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? Detesting idols, do you commit idolatrous acts?

For the real Jew is not merely Jewish outwardly: true circumcision is not only external and physical.

On the contrary, the real Jew is one inwardly; and true circumcision is of the heart, spiritual not literal; so that his praise comes not from other people but from God.

Indeed! Why not say (as some people slander us by claiming we do say), “Let us do evil, so that good may come of it”? Against them the judgment is a just one!

So are we Jews better off? Not entirely; for I have already made the charge that all people, Jews and Gentiles alike, are controlled by sin.

As the Tanakh puts it, “There is no one righteous, not even one! No one understands,

all have turned away and at the same time become useless; there is no one who shows kindness, not a single one!

and the way of shalom they do not know.

“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Therefore, we hold the view that a person comes to be considered righteous by God on the ground of trusting, which has nothing to do with legalistic observance of Torah commands.

For if Avraham came to be considered righteous by God because of legalistic observances, then he has something to boast about. But this is not how it is before God!

Now the account of someone who is working is credited not on the ground of grace but on the ground of what is owed him.

However, in the case of one who is not working but rather is trusting in him who makes ungodly people righteous, his trust is credited to him as righteousness.

Blessed is the man whose sin Adonai will not reckon against his account.”

but what state was he in when it was so credited — circumcision or uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision!

and at the same time be the father of every circumcised person who not only has had a b’rit-milah, but also follows in the footsteps of the trust which Avraham avinu had when he was still uncircumcised.

For the promise to Avraham and his seed that he would inherit the world did not come through legalism but through the righteousness that trust produces.

The reason the promise is based on trusting is so that it may come as God’s free gift, a promise that can be relied on by all the seed, not only those who live within the framework of the Torah, but also those with the kind of trust Avraham had — Avraham avinu for all of us.