1. Then, what is the advantage of being a Jew? And what is the use of circumcision?

2. It is important from any point of view. In the first place, it was to the Jews that God entrusted his word.

3. Well now, if some of them were not faithful, will their unfaithfulness do away with the faithfulness of God? Of course not.

4. Rather, it will be proved that God is truthful, every human a liar, as the Scripture says: it will be proved that your words are true and you will be winner if they want to judge you.

5. If our wickedness shows God to be just, would it be right to say that God is unjust when he gets angry and punishes us? (Some people might speak like this.)

6. - Not at all because, otherwise, how could God judge the world?

7. - But if my lie makes the truth of God more evident, thus increasing his glory, is it correct to call me a sinner?

8. - Then, your only choice would be to sin, so that good may come of it. Some slanderers say that this is my teaching, but they will have to answer for those words.

9. Do we have, then, any advantage? Not really. For we have just demonstrated that all, Jews and non-Jews, are under the power of sin,

10. as the Scripture says: Nobody is good, not even one,

11. no one understands, no one looks for God.

12. All have gone astray and have become base. There is no one doing what is good, not even one.

13. Their throats are open tombs, their words deceit.

14. Their lips hide poison of vipers, from their mouth come bitter curses.

15. They run to where they can shed blood,

16. leaving behind ruin and misery.

17. They do not know the way of peace,

18. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

19. Now we know that whatever the Scripture says, it is said for the people of the Law, that is for the Jews. Let all be silent then and recognize that the whole world is guilty before God.

20. Still more: no mortal will be worthy before God by performing the demands of the Law. What comes from the Law is the consciousness of sin.

21. Yet, now we are told how God makes us just as he wants us to be without the Law. This was already foretold in the Law and the Prophets:

22. God makes us righteous by means of faith in Jesus Christ, and this is applied to all who believe, without distinction of persons.

23. Because all have sinned and all fall short of the Glory of God;

24. and all are graciously forgiven and made righteous through the redemption effected in Christ Jesus.

25. For God has given him to be the victim whose blood obtains us forgiveness through faith. So God shows us how he makes us righteous. Past sins are forgiven

26. which God overlooked till now. For now he wants to reveal his way of righteousness: how he is just and how he makes us righteous through faith in Jesus.

27. Then what becomes of our pride? It is excluded. How? Not through the Law and its observances, but through another law which is faith.

28. For we hold that people are in God's grace by faith and not because of all the things ordered by the Law.

29. Otherwise, God would be the God of the Jews; but is he not God of pagan nations as well?

30. Of course he is, for there is only one God and he will save by faith the circumcised Jews as well as the uncircumcised nations.

31. Do we, then, deny the value of the Law because of what we say of faith? Of course not; rather we place the Law in its proper place.





“Todas as percepções humanas, de onde quer que venham, incluem o bem e o mal. É necessário saber determinar e assimilar todo o bem e oferecê-lo a Deus, e eliminar todo o mal.” São Padre Pio de Pietrelcina