Romans 2:25

Any one of you who is circumcised to show that he belongs to God can benefit from that if he obeys the laws God gave to Moses. But if you (sg), a circumcised person, disobey God’s laws, God will consider that you who are circumcised are no better in God’s sight than someone who is not circumcised.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.

In Context

24You must not be like our ancestors, about whom were written these words in the Scriptures: “The non-Jews speak evil about God because of the evil actions of many of you Jews.” The non-Jews say God must be a hypocrite if he condones the behavior of people like you.

26This means that God will certainly consider that even non-Jews who are not circumcised can become his people if they obey the things that he commanded in his laws. [RHQ]

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Cross References

Deuteronomy 30:6Yahweh our God will change [MET] your inner beings, with the result that you will love him more than you love anything else and want to do only what he wants you to do. And then you will continue to live in that land.

Jeremiah 9:25There will be a time when I will punish all those people of Egypt and of the Moab people-group and of the Edom people-group and of the Ammon people-group, all those people who live close to desert areas (OR, who cut their hair short to please their gods) far from Judah, all those people who have changed their bodies by circumcising them [MET] but who have not changed their inner beings. I will punish the people of Judah also, because they have not changed their inner beings, either.”

Romans 2:23You who boast saying, “ I have God’s laws,” it is disgusting that you disobey those same laws! [RHQ] As a result you are insulting God!

Romans 4:11Many years later, God commanded that Abraham be circumcised. Abraham’s accepting that ritual simply showed that he knew that God had accepted him. He knew that God had erased the record of his sins because he trusted in God while he was still, in effect, a non-Jew because he had not been circumcised. So we can understand that Abraham became ◄a spiritual ancestor/like an ancestor► to all of us whose record of sins has been erased {whose sins God has erased the record of} because we believe in God’s promise, even though some of us are not circumcised.

Galatians 6:15I will boast about Christ dying on the cross because God is concerned neither that people are circumcised nor that people are not circumcised. Instead, he is concerned only that people conduct their lives in a completely new way.

Matthew Henry on Romans 2:18-29

The Pretensions of the Jews; The Depravity of the Jews. ( a. d. 58.) 17 Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, 18 And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; 19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, 20 An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. 21 Thou therefore which teachest… Read the whole commentary →

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