Goodspeed(i)
10 As the Scripture says, "There is not a single man who is upright,
11 No one understands, no one searches for God.
12 All have turned away, they are one and all worthless, No one does right, not a single one!
13 Their throats are like open graves, They use their tongues to deceive; The venom of asps is behind their lips,
14 And their mouths are full of bitter curses.
15 Their feet are swift when it comes to shedding blood,
16 Ruin and wretchedness mark their paths,
17 They do not know the way of peace.
18 There is no reverence for God before their eyes!"
19 Now we know that everything the Law says is addressed to those under its authority, so that every mouth may be shut, and the whole world be made accountable to God.
20 For no human being can be made upright in the sight of God by observing the Law. All that the Law can do is to make man conscious of sin.
21 But now God's way of uprightness has been disclosed without any reference to law, though the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it.
22 It is God's way of uprightness and comes through having faith in Jesus Christ, and it is for all who have faith, without distinction.
23 For all men sin and come short of the glory of God,
24 but by his mercy they are made upright for nothing, by the deliverance secured through Christ Jesus.
25 For God showed him publicly dying as a sacrifice of reconciliation to be taken advantage of through faith. This was to vindicate his own justice (for in his forbearance, God passed over men's former sins)—
26 to vindicate his justice at the present time, and show that he is upright himself, and that he makes those who have faith in Jesus upright also.
27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is shut out. On what principle? What a man does? No, but whether a man has faith.
28 For we hold that a man is made upright by faith; the observance of the Law has nothing to do with it.
29 Does God belong to the Jews alone? Does he not belong to the heathen too? Of course he belongs to the heathen too;
30 there is but one God, and he will make the circumcised upright on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised upright because of theirs."
31 Is this using faith to overthrow law? Far from it. This confirms the Law.