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- Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God;
- if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law;
- if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark,
- an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth--
- you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal?
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- You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
- You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?
- As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
- Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.
- If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised?
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- The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.
- A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.
- No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.
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