Romans 2:13
New International Version
For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

New Living Translation
For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight.

English Standard Version
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

Berean Standard Bible
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but it is the doers of the law who will be declared righteous.

Berean Literal Bible
for not the hearers of the Law are righteous with God; but the doers of the Law will be justified.

King James Bible
(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

New King James Version
(for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified;

New American Standard Bible
for it is not the hearers of the Law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the Law who will be justified.

NASB 1995
for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.

NASB 1977
for not the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.

Legacy Standard Bible
For it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.

Amplified Bible
For it is not those who merely hear the Law [as it is read aloud] who are just or righteous before God, but it is those who [actually] obey the Law who will be justified [pronounced free of the guilt of sin and declared acceptable to Him].

Christian Standard Bible
For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be declared righteous.

American Standard Version
for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified:

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
The hearers of The Written Law are not righteous ones before God, but the doers of The Written Law are justified.

Contemporary English Version
God accepts those who obey his Law, but not those who simply hear it.

Douay-Rheims Bible
For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

English Revised Version
for not the hearers of a law are just before God, but the doers of a law shall be justified:

GOD'S WORD® Translation
People who merely listen to laws from God don't have God's approval. Rather, people who do what those laws demand will have God's approval.

Good News Translation
For it is not by hearing the Law that people are put right with God, but by doing what the Law commands.

International Standard Version
For it is not merely those who hear the Law who are righteous in God's sight. No, it is those who follow the Law, who will be justified.

Literal Standard Version
for not the hearers of the Law [are] righteous before God, but the doers of the Law will be declared righteous.

Majority Standard Bible
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but it is the doers of the law who will be declared righteous.

New American Bible
For it is not those who hear the law who are just in the sight of God; rather, those who observe the law will be justified.

NET Bible
For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous before God, but those who do the law will be declared righteous.

New Revised Standard Version
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

New Heart English Bible
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.

Webster's Bible Translation
(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

Weymouth New Testament
It is not those that merely hear the Law read who are righteous in the sight of God, but it is those that obey the Law who will be pronounced righteous.

World English Bible
For it isn’t the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified

Young's Literal Translation
for not the hearers of the law are righteous before God, but the doers of the law shall be declared righteous: --

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
God's Righteous Judgment
12All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but it is the doers of the law who will be declared righteous. 14Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.…

Cross References
Jeremiah 11:6
Then the LORD said to me, "Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear the words of this covenant and carry them out.

Matthew 7:21
Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven.

Matthew 7:24
Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

John 13:17
If you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

Romans 2:25
Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

1 Corinthians 4:4
My conscience is clear, but that does not vindicate me. It is the Lord who judges me.

James 1:22
Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves.


Treasury of Scripture

(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

For not.

Romans 2:25
For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.

Deuteronomy 4:1
Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you.

Deuteronomy 5:1
And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them.

but the.

Romans 3:20,23
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin…

Romans 10:5
For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.

Luke 10:25-29
And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? …

justified.

Romans 3:30
Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.

Romans 4:2-5
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God…

Psalm 143:2
And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.

Jump to Previous
Declared Doers God's Hear Hearers Judged Justified Law Merely Obey Pronounced Read Righteous Righteousness Sight
Jump to Next
Declared Doers God's Hear Hearers Judged Justified Law Merely Obey Pronounced Read Righteous Righteousness Sight
Romans 2
1. No excuse for sin.
6. No escape from judgment.
14. Gentiles cannot;
17. nor Jews.














(13) For not the hearers of the law.--The parenthesis should not be placed here (as usually in the Authorised version), but at the beginning of the next verse. The present verse is explanatory of that which precedes. "Judged, I say, by the Law; for they must not suppose that the mere fact of their being under the Law will exempt them from this judgment. The only exemption will be that which is given to those who have kept the Law, and not merely had the privilege of hearing it. And," the argument follows--the Apostle digressing for a moment to pursue this point to its conclusion--"this exemption, may apply quite as much to Gentile as to Jew."

Hearers of the law.--Strictly (as above), hearers of law--i.e., those who have a law to which they can listen, and by which they may be guided. (Comp. Acts 13:27; Acts 15:21, "Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath"; and for the opposition between hearing and doing, James 1:22-23; James 1:25.)

Verse 13. - For not the hearers of Law are just before God, but the doers of Law shall be justified; In this verse, as in the previous one, νόμου is anarthrous according to the best-supported readings, though the Textus Receptus has τοῦ before it. It has, therefore, been rendered above simply as Law, not as either the law, or a law, as the same word will be below, whenever it stands by itself without either the article or any modifying genitive. Much has been written by commentators on the senses in which this word νόμος is to be understood, as used by St. Paul with or without the article. In an Appendix to the Introduction to the Epistle to the Romans in the 'Speaker's Commentary' will be found a summary of the views taken by critics of repute, with exhaustive references to the usage of the word in the Septuagint, in the New Testament generally, and in the writings of St. Paul. It has not been thought necessary in this Commentary to discuss further what has been so amply discussed already. It may suffice to state certain principles for the reader's guidance, which appear plainly to commend themselves to acceptance.

(1) νόμος, with the article prefixed, always means the Mosaic Law.

(2) Νόμος, without the article, may have, and often has, specific reference to the Mosaic Law; but, if so, the emission of the article is not arbitrary, but involves a difference of meaning. The article in Greek is prefixed to a word when the latter is intended to convey some definite idea already familiarized to the mind, and "the natural effect of its presence is to divert the thoughts from dwelling on the peculiar import of the word, and is adverse to its inherent notion standing out as a prominent point in the sense of the passage" (quoted from 'Grammar of the New Testament Dialect,' by T. S. Green, in Appendix to Introduction to Romans in the 'Speaker's Commentary '). Hence the omission of the article, where it might have been used, before a word has often the effect of emphasizing and drawing attention to the inherent notion of the word. We may take as an instance ver. 17 in this chapter, where the Textus Receptus has ἐπαναπαύῃ τῷ νόμῳ but where the preferable reading omits the article. In either case the Mosaic Law is referred to; but the omission of the article brings into prominence the principle of justification on which the Jew rested - viz. Law, which exacts entire obedience. In the following verse (the eighteenth), in the phrase, κατηχούμενος ἐκ τοῦ νόμου the article is inserted, the intention being simply to say that the Jew was instructed in the well-known Law of Moses. The same difference of meaning is intimated by the omission or insertion of the article in ver. 23 and elsewhere in other parts of the chapter and of the whole Epistle (see especially ch. 7.). The apostle, who, however spontaneous and unstudied might be his style of writing, by no means used phrases at random, would not surely have thus varied his expressions so often in one and the same sentence without intended significance.

(3) Νόμος without the article seems evidently in many passages to be used by St. Paul to denote law in the abstract, without any exclusive reference to the Mosaic Law at all, or to any particular code of law. Doubtless the Mosaic Law, in which he had been educated, and which he had painfully proved the impossibility of keeping perfectly, had been to him the grand embodiment and representative of law; but he had hence been led to an abstract conception, ever before his mind, of law as representing the principle of exaction of full obedience to requirements; and when he says, as he so often does, that by law no man can be justified, he means that none can be so on the principle of complete conformity being required to the behests of Divine righteousness, whether as revealed from Mount Sinai or through the human conscience, or in any other way; for by law is the knowledge of sin and consequent guilt, but not the power of avoiding sin. Those who ignore the distinction as above explained, saying, as some do, that νόμος, whether with or without the article, always means simply the Law of Moses, fail to enter into the depth and generality of the apostle's argument. The distinction will be observed in this translation throughout the Epistle (ὁ νόμος being translated "the Law," and νόμος "law"), and it will be found always to have a meaning. (For one instance in which it is hardly possible to suppose St. Paul to have omitted and inserted the article in the same sentence without a meaning, cf. Galatians 4:21.)

Parallel Commentaries ...


Greek
For [it is]
γὰρ (gar)
Conjunction
Strong's 1063: For. A primary particle; properly, assigning a reason.

not
οὐ (ou)
Adverb
Strong's 3756: No, not. Also ouk, and ouch a primary word; the absolute negative adverb; no or not.

the
οἱ (hoi)
Article - Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

hearers
ἀκροαταὶ (akroatai)
Noun - Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong's 202: A hearer of, a listener to. From akroaomai; a hearer.

of [the] Law
νόμου (nomou)
Noun - Genitive Masculine Singular
Strong's 3551: From a primary nemo; law, genitive case, specially, (including the volume); also of the Gospel), or figuratively.

[who are] righteous
δίκαιοι (dikaioi)
Adjective - Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong's 1342: From dike; equitable; by implication, innocent, holy.

before
παρὰ (para)
Preposition
Strong's 3844: Gen: from; dat: beside, in the presence of; acc: alongside of.

God,
Θεῷ (Theō)
Noun - Dative Masculine Singular
Strong's 2316: A deity, especially the supreme Divinity; figuratively, a magistrate; by Hebraism, very.

but [it is]
ἀλλ’ (all’)
Conjunction
Strong's 235: But, except, however. Neuter plural of allos; properly, other things, i.e. contrariwise.

the
οἱ (hoi)
Article - Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

doers
ποιηταὶ (poiētai)
Noun - Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong's 4163: (a) a maker, poet, (b) a doer, carrier out, performer. From poieo; a performer; specially, a 'poet'.

of [the] Law
νόμου (nomou)
Noun - Genitive Masculine Singular
Strong's 3551: From a primary nemo; law, genitive case, specially, (including the volume); also of the Gospel), or figuratively.

[who] will be declared righteous.
δικαιωθήσονται (dikaiōthēsontai)
Verb - Future Indicative Passive - 3rd Person Plural
Strong's 1344: From dikaios; to render just or innocent.


Links
Romans 2:13 NIV
Romans 2:13 NLT
Romans 2:13 ESV
Romans 2:13 NASB
Romans 2:13 KJV

Romans 2:13 BibleApps.com
Romans 2:13 Biblia Paralela
Romans 2:13 Chinese Bible
Romans 2:13 French Bible
Romans 2:13 Catholic Bible

NT Letters: Romans 2:13 For it isn't the hearers (Rom. Ro)
Romans 2:12
Top of Page
Top of Page