Romans 3 - Plain English Version(PEV)

Nobody is really good

9So what about those of us that are Jewish people? Will God be more good to us than to other people? No way. Both Jewish people and other people do bad things, just like I already said.

10It is like God says in his book,

“Nobody is really good, not even one person,

11nobody understands about God, nobody even tries to get to know him.

12Everybody turns away from God,

they all go wrong,

not even one of them does good things.

13They say things that make big trouble for other people,

whenever they talk, they tell lies and trick people.

Their words hurt people, their mouths are just as bad as cheeky snakes.

14They swear at other people and say bad things about them.

15They are always ready to kill other people.

16Wherever they go, they hurt people and make them really sad.

17They don’t know how to live without fighting.

18They don’t respect God or take any notice of him.”

19-20You know, it’s like this. God gave his law to the Jewish people for them to follow. And God is the judge of everybody in the whole world. And nobody has kept all of that law, so nobody can argue with him. Nobody can tell God, “I have kept all those laws, so I’m all right. You can’t punish me.” We can’t say that, because we all broke that law at some time.

So why is the law there? It is there just to let us know that we always go wrong. That’s what it is there for.

If we believe in Jesus, God says we are all right

21-22But now it is different. God showed us a different way. And if we follow his way, he will be happy with us and say that we are all right. His way is not about that law, it is about us trusting Jesus Christ. God tells us about this in his book. God says that if we trust in Jesus, he will save us. It doesn’t matter who we are. God treats everybody the same.

31So what do you reckon about God’s law? We believe in Jesus now, so do we have to forget everything God said in his law? No way. If we believe in Jesus, we agree that the law is from God.