Romans 3:11–17

²The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.

³They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

⁴Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.

²God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.

³For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.

⁶¶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

⁷Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

¹⁰And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this.

¹WOE to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord!

⁶¶ Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

¹I AM sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.

²²For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.

²⁰And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

¹⁹When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.

²²How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?

²⁹For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord:

³⁰They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

¹³¶ For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts.

¹³Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

¹⁴And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:

⁷¶ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

²²Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

¹¹When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour.

¹⁵What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?

¹⁶Lo, their good is not in their hand: the counsel of the wicked is far from me.

⁸Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?

²⁸And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

⁴Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread: they have not called upon God.

³They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

²⁰For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.

⁸The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

⁶But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

⁶All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

²⁹Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

²⁵For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

³Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

¹¹Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me:

⁸For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

⁹Not of works, lest any man should boast.

¹⁰For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

³¹And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

⁸They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

⁶And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

⁷And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

¹⁶Do not err, my beloved brethren.

¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

¹³For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

³⁰And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

¹²Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

¹³For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

¹THE fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.

¹³Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

¹⁴Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

⁹For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.

³They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah.

²⁷Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.

²⁸Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

³And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord.

⁴Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.

⁵And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

⁴My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.

⁷Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The Lord saith it; albeit I have not spoken?

³For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.

⁵Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

⁶And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

⁷For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:

⁸But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

³⁴O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

³⁵A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.

²Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp rasor, working deceitfully.

¹⁶Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men.

³The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit: he hath left off to be wise, and to do good.

⁴God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

³³Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.

³The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things:

⁴Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?

¹⁴Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within him.

¹⁵He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly.

¹⁶He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper’s tongue shall slay him.

⁷His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.

¹⁷As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.

¹⁸As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.

¹²For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips let them even be taken in their pride: and for cursing and lying which they speak.

¹⁰Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.

⁷Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

⁸The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

¹⁶For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

¹⁸An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,

⁸The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

¹THEREFORE being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

⁷⁹To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

¹⁴Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

²¹There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.