Romans 3

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

The faithfulness of Elohim

¹ What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? ² Much in every way! First, because to them were committed the oracles of Elohim. ³ For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of Elohim without effect? ⁴ Certainly not! Indeed, let Elohim be true but every man a liar. As it is written, "That You may be justified in Your words, and may overcome when You are judged." ⁵ But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of Elohim, what shall we say? Is Elohim unrighteous who inflicts wrath? I speak as a man. ⁶ Certainly not! For then how will Elohim judge the world? ⁷ For if the truth of Elohim has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? ⁸ And why not say, as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say, "Let us do evil that good may come"? Their condemnation is just.

All are under sin

⁹ What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. ¹⁰ As it is written: "There is none righteous, not even one; ¹¹ there is none who understands; there is none who seeks Elohim. ¹² They have all turned aside; together they have become worthless; there is none who does good, not even one. ¹³ Their throat is an open grave; with their tongues they have practiced deceit; the venom of vipers is under their lips; ¹⁴ whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; ¹⁵ their feet are swift to shed blood; ¹⁶ destruction and misery are in their ways; ¹⁷ and the way of peace they have not known; ¹⁸ there is no fear of Elohim before their eyes."

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the Torah says, it says to those who are in the Torah, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may come under the judgment of Elohim. ²⁰ For by works of the Torah no flesh will be justified in His sight, for through the Torah is the knowledge of sin.

The righteousness of Elohim through faith

²¹ But now the righteousness of Elohim apart from the Torah is revealed, being witnessed by the Torah and the Prophets, ²² even the righteousness of Elohim, through faith in Yeshua the Messiah, to all and on all who believe; for there is no distinction; ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of Elohim, ²⁴ being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in the Messiah Yeshua, ²⁵ whom Elohim set forth as a mercy seat, through faith, in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins previously committed ²⁶ in the forbearance of Elohim; to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Yeshua.

Boasting is excluded

²⁷ Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸ Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Torah. ²⁹ Or is He the Elohim of the Jews only? Is He not also of the nations? Yes, of the nations also, ³⁰ since Elohim is one, who will justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith. ³¹ Do we then make void the Torah through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the Torah.

Notes

• 3:4 "Certainly not!" (mē genoito, "may it not be") is Paul's strongest denial, used ten times in Romans (3:4, 6, 31; 6:2, 15; 7:7, 13; 9:14; 11:1, 11). "Every man a liar" echoes Psalm 116:11, "Every man is a liar." Paul then quotes Psalm 51:4 in its Greek form; the Hebrew reads "so that You are in the right when You speak and blameless when You judge," while the Greek speaks of Elohim being justified in His words and overcoming when He is judged. Both say that Elohim is shown to be in the right even when His people are not.
• 3:10 Verses 10-18 string together lines from Psalm 14:1-3 (also Psalm 53:1-3), Psalm 5:9, Psalm 140:3, Psalm 10:7, Isaiah 59:7-8 and Psalm 36:1, mostly in the wording of the ancient Greek translation; chains of Scripture verses of this kind are also found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. In their places several of these lines describe the wicked within Israel itself (Isaiah 59 is addressed to Israel), and Paul uses them to show that "both Jews and Greeks" are "all under sin" (verse 9).
• 3:20 "Works of the Torah" (erga nomou) has a Hebrew counterpart in a Dead Sea Scroll known as 4QMMT, which sets out "some of the works of the Torah," rulings on purity, offerings and separation, and says that keeping them will be counted as righteousness. Scholars debate whether Paul means everything the Torah commands or especially the practices that marked out Israel, such as circumcision, food and the calendar, when they are made the ground of being counted righteous. His words echo Psalm 143:2, "for no one living is righteous before You"; and that the Torah brings "the knowledge of sin" does not make the Torah sin, as he says in 7:7.
• 3:22 "Faith in Yeshua the Messiah" translates pistis Iēsou Christou, as in verse 26. The Greek can also be read "the faith" or "faithfulness of Yeshua the Messiah," His own faithful obedience, and both readings have long had defenders; either way Paul adds at once "to all and on all who believe." The words "and on all" are in the Majority Text, which the TRB follows; many modern Bibles, following other manuscripts, leave them out.
• 3:25 "Mercy seat" is hilastērion, the word the ancient Greek translation uses for the kapporet, the gold cover of the ark where the high priest sprinkled blood on Yom Kippur, "sprinkling it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat" (Leviticus 16:15); Hebrews 9:5 uses it in the same sense. Many Bibles translate it here "propitiation" or "sacrifice of atonement"; the TRB keeps "mercy seat" to show the link with the tabernacle, though readers weigh that link differently. Elohim had passed over sins in His forbearance, and now He shows that He is just in the way He justifies.
• 3:31 Paul has said that no one is justified by works of the Torah (verses 20, 28) and that the one Elohim justifies Jews and the nations alike by faith (verses 29-30), echoing the Shema, "Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our Elohim, Yahweh is one!" (Deuteronomy 6:4). Here he answers the question that follows with his strongest denial: faith does not make the Torah void but establishes it. Chapter 4 shows this from the Torah itself, from Abraham, and Paul returns to it in 8:4, "so that the righteous requirement of the Torah might be fulfilled in us."

Romans 2 · Romans 4

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