Romans 2:1

The Condemnation of the Moralist

2:1 ¹ Therefore ²  you are without excuse, ³  whoever you are, ⁴  when you judge someone else. ⁵  For on whatever grounds ⁶  you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.

Romans 3:4

3:4 Absolutely not! Let God be proven true, and every human being ⁷  shown up as a liar, ⁸  just as it is written: “so that you will be justified ⁹  in your words and will prevail when you are judged.” ¹⁰ 

Romans 4:11

4:11 And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised, ¹¹  so that he would become ¹²  the father of all those who believe but have never been circumcised, ¹³  that they too could have righteousness credited to them.

Romans 9:17

9:17 For the scripture says to Pharaoh: ¹⁴  “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may demonstrate my power in you, and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” ¹⁵ 

Romans 10:18

10:18 But I ask, have they ¹⁶  not heard? ¹⁷  Yes, they have: ¹⁸  Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. ¹⁹ 

Romans 12:3

Conduct in Humility

12:3 For by the grace given to me I say to every one of you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think with sober discernment, as God has distributed to each of you ²⁰  a measure of faith. ²¹ 

Romans 13:7

13:7 Pay everyone what is owed: taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

Romans 15:13-14

15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in him, ²²  so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s Motivation for Writing the Letter

15:14 But I myself am fully convinced about you, my brothers and sisters, ²³  that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.

Romans 16:19

16:19 Your obedience is known to all and thus I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.

[2:1]  ¹ sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).

[2:1]  ² tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.

[2:1]  ³ tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).

[2:1]  ⁴ tn Grk “O man.”

[2:1]  ⁵ tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”

[2:1]  ⁶ tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”

[3:4]  ⁷ tn Grk “every man”; but ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used in a generic sense here to stress humanity rather than masculinity.

[3:4]  ⁸ tn Grk “Let God be true, and every man a liar.” The words “proven” and “shown up” are supplied in the translation to clarify the meaning.

[3:4]  ⁹ tn Grk “might be justified,” a subjunctive verb, but in this type of clause it carries the same sense as the future indicative verb in the latter part. “Will” is more idiomatic in contemporary English.

[3:4]  ¹⁰ tn Or “prevail when you judge.” A quotation from Ps 51:4.

[4:11]  ¹³ tn Grk “of the faith, the one [existing] in uncircumcision.”

[4:11]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “that he might be,” giving the purpose of v. 11a.

[4:11]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “through uncircumcision.”

[9:17]  ¹⁹ sn Paul uses a typical rabbinic formula here in which the OT scriptures are figuratively portrayed as speaking to Pharaoh. What he means is that the scripture he cites refers (or can be applied) to Pharaoh.

[9:17]  ²⁰ sn A quotation from Exod 9:16.

[10:18]  ²⁵ tn That is, Israel (see the following verse).

[10:18]  ²⁶ tn Grk “they have not ‘not heard,’ have they?” This question is difficult to render in English. The basic question is a negative sentence (“Have they not heard?”), but it is preceded by the particle μή (mh) which expects a negative response. The end result in English is a double negative (“They have not ‘not heard,’ have they?”). This has been changed to a positive question in the translation for clarity. See BDAG 646 s.v. μή 3.a.; D. Moo, Romans (NICNT), 666, fn. 32; and C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans (ICC), 537, for discussion.

[10:18]  ²⁷ tn Here the particle μενοῦνγε (menounge) is correcting the negative response expected by the particle μή (mh) in the preceding question. Since the question has been translated positively, the translation was changed here to reflect that rendering.

[10:18]  ²⁸ sn A quotation from Ps 19:4.

[12:3]  ³¹ tn The words “of you” have been supplied for clarity.

[12:3]  ³² tn Or “to each as God has distributed a measure of faith.”

[15:13]  ³⁷ tn Grk “in the believing” or “as [you] believe,” with the object “him” supplied from the context. The referent could be God (15:13a) or Christ (15:12).

[15:14]  ⁴³ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.