Romans 3:9–20
“What then? Are we better than they? No, in no way. For we previously warned both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written,
‘There is no one righteous;
no, not one.
There is no one who understands.
There is no one who seeks after God.
They have all turned away.
They have together become unprofitable.
There is no one who does good,
no, not so much as one.’
‘Their throat is an open tomb.
With their tongues they have used deceit.’
‘The poison of vipers is under their lips.’
‘Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.’
‘Their feet are swift to shed blood.
Destruction and misery are in their ways.
The way of peace, they haven’t known.’
‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’
“Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God. Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”
Paul has defended the reality of Israel’s privilege without allowing that privilege to become a claim of moral superiority. The question in Romans 3:9 follows naturally: “Are we better than they?” His answer is unequivocal. Jews and Greeks alike are “under sin.”
Paul establishes that verdict from Israel’s own Scriptures. The passages he gathers describe corruption reaching human understanding, desire, speech, conduct, and relationships. The sequence ends at the deepest problem beneath them: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” The Scriptures in which Israel rightly gloried do not provide an escape from the indictment. They participate in making it.
By the time Paul reaches verse 20, the image is judicial. Every mouth is closed, and the whole world stands accountable to God. The law can identify sin and expose the lawbreaker, but it cannot turn the lawbreaker’s works into a basis for justification.
Are We Better Than They?
Romans 3:9
“What then? Are we better than they? No, in no way. For we previously warned both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.”
Paul has just insisted that Jewish advantage is real. Israel was entrusted with God’s revelations, and Israel’s unfaithfulness cannot nullify God’s faithfulness. Yet genuine privilege must not be confused with moral superiority before God. The people who received greater revelation remain members of the same sinful humanity as the nations around them.
Paul explains his answer with the charge he has already established: “both Jews and Greeks” are “all under sin.” The phrase describes more than the fact that everyone has committed individual sins. Sin appears here as a power beneath which humanity stands. Jesus uses similar language when describing slavery to sin:
John 8:34
“Jesus answered them, ‘Most certainly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin.’”
Paul uses the same imagery:
Romans 6:16
“Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?”
Jew and Greek possess different histories and different measures of revelation, but neither stands naturally outside sin’s dominion. Paul’s use of “we” keeps the indictment from becoming an accusation directed only at somebody else. He does not stand among the Jews and point toward Gentile wickedness as though Israel’s possession of Scripture has removed Israel from the human condition he describes. The distinction between Jew and Gentile remains real, but it does not become a distinction between sinful humanity and naturally righteous humanity.
There Is No One Righteous
Romans 3:10–12
“As it is written,
‘There is no one righteous;
no, not one.
There is no one who understands.
There is no one who seeks after God.
They have all turned away.
They have together become unprofitable.
There is no one who does good,
no, not so much as one.’”
The wording draws primarily from Psalms 14 and 53:
Psalm 14:1–3
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’
They are corrupt.
They have done abominable deeds.
There is no one who does good.
Yahweh looked down from heaven on the children of men,
to see if there were any who understood,
who sought after God.
They have all gone aside.
They have together become corrupt.
There is no one who does good,
no, not one.”
Paul is not collecting unrelated Old Testament phrases that happen to speak negatively about human behavior. Psalm 14 already describes widespread corruption. Yahweh looks upon “the children of men” to see whether any understand and seek him, and the verdict is that “they have all gone aside.” Paul applies that testimony within his argument concerning the common condition of Jew and Gentile.
“There is no one righteous” answers any attempt to locate a naturally righteous class within humanity. Paul has repeatedly spoken of God’s righteous judgment and has already shown that recognizing unrighteousness in another person does not make the judge righteous. No ethnic identity, possession of revelation, or ability to identify evil supplies an exception to the indictment.
The statements concerning understanding and seeking God must be read alongside what Paul has already said about human knowledge of God:
“There is no one who understands.
There is no one who seeks after God.”
Romans 1 did not describe humanity as possessing absolutely no awareness of God. God has made his everlasting power and divinity known through creation. The problem lies in humanity’s response to what has been made known. People suppress the truth rather than glorifying God and giving thanks.
“There is no one who seeks after God” therefore does not require us to deny that human beings practice religion, ask questions about God, pursue spiritual experiences, or sincerely believe themselves to be searching for divine truth. Paul is describing humanity’s orientation toward the true God. Human beings do not naturally answer God’s self-disclosure with the worship and obedience the Creator is owed.
The language of turning away makes that rebellion active rather than merely deficient:
“They have all turned away.”
Humanity’s problem is not that God remained hidden while people searched unsuccessfully for him. God made himself known, and humanity turned from what was known. Isaiah uses similar imagery:
Isaiah 53:6
“All we like sheep have gone astray.
Everyone has turned to his own way;
and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
The universality is striking in both passages. “All” have gone astray, and “everyone” has turned to his own way.
The declaration that “there is no one who does good” is equally comprehensive, but it should not be made to say more than Paul’s argument requires. Paul has already acknowledged Gentiles who “do by nature the things of the law.” Human beings outside saving faith can care for children, help neighbors, enact just laws, recognize genuine moral obligations, and perform actions beneficial to others.
Paul is describing humanity measured before God, not denying every relative distinction between human actions. No one can stand before the righteous Creator and present his moral record as the exception to the scriptural indictment. Human beings may perform genuinely beneficial acts without thereby possessing a righteousness capable of answering God’s judgment.
Their Throat Is an Open Tomb
Romans 3:13–14
“‘Their throat is an open tomb.
With their tongues they have used deceit.’
‘The poison of vipers is under their lips.’
‘Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.’”
Paul’s quotations move from humanity’s general condition to the way that condition becomes visible in speech. The first comes from Psalm 5:
Psalm 5:9
“For there is no faithfulness in their mouth.
Their heart is destruction.
Their throat is an open tomb.
They flatter with their tongue.”
An open tomb exposes death and corruption. Applied to the throat, the image connects speech with what lies within the person. Jesus makes the same connection between the mouth and the heart:
Matthew 12:34–35
“For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man out of his good treasure brings out good things, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings out evil things.”
The catalogue therefore does not abandon the subject of inward corruption for an unrelated collection of verbal offenses. Speech reveals it. Deceit, slander, manipulation, accusation, and malicious words give outward expression to what is within.
Psalm 140 supplies the image of poison:
Psalm 140:3
“They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent.
Viper’s poison is under their lips.”
The comparison captures the destructive capacity of words. A serpent can inflict tremendous harm through a small wound, and human speech can damage reputations, relationships, communities, and lives without physical violence.
Paul also draws from Psalm 10:
Psalm 10:7
“His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression.
Under his tongue is mischief and iniquity.”
The concentration on throat, tongue, lips, and mouth makes speech an important part of Paul’s evidence. Sin is not confined to spectacular acts of wickedness. Ordinary words can expose the same disorder of the heart that becomes visible elsewhere in human conduct.
Their Feet Are Swift to Shed Blood
Romans 3:15–17
“‘Their feet are swift to shed blood.
Destruction and misery are in their ways.
The way of peace, they haven’t known.’”
The language comes from Isaiah:
Isaiah 59:7–8
“Their feet run to evil,
and they hurry to shed innocent blood.
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity.
Desolation and destruction are in their paths.
They don’t know the way of peace;
and there is no justice in their ways.
They have made crooked paths for themselves;
whoever goes in them doesn’t know peace.”
Isaiah describes a people whose sins have corrupted both their relationship with God and their relationships with one another. Paul incorporates that description into his scriptural testimony concerning humanity under sin.
The body imagery continues from speech into conduct. Throats, tongues, lips, and mouths have served as instruments of corruption; now feet hurry toward violence. The description “swift to shed blood” emphasizes not merely the existence of violence but humanity’s readiness for it. Desire, fear, envy, anger, power, and self-interest repeatedly become reasons for treating another person as an obstacle or enemy who may be harmed.
The consequences extend beyond the individual sinner. “Destruction and misery are in their ways.” Sin enters families, friendships, communities, governments, and nations, creating suffering for people other than the one committing it. Scripture’s account of sin therefore reaches far beyond private guilt. Human rebellion produces disorder in the shared world of human relationships.
Isaiah’s statement that “the way of peace, they haven’t known” completes the picture. Biblical peace is more than a temporary absence of open conflict. It involves wholeness and rightly ordered relationships. The paths Isaiah describes cannot produce such peace because they are marked by injustice and violence.
There Is No Fear of God Before Their Eyes
Romans 3:18
“‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’”
Paul’s chain of quotations ends with Psalm 36:
Psalm 36:1–4
“A revelation is within my heart about the disobedience of the wicked:
‘There is no fear of God before his eyes.’
For he flatters himself in his own eyes,
too much to detect and hate his sin.
The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit.
He has ceased to be wise and to do good.
He plots iniquity on his bed.
He sets himself in a way that is not good.
He doesn’t abhor evil.”
This final quotation reaches beneath the behaviors Paul has listed. Scripture repeatedly describes the fear of God as foundational to wisdom:
Proverbs 9:10
“The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom.
The knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
To fear God is to recognize him as God and to live with the reverence and accountability appropriate to a creature before the Creator. Its absence allows human desire to function as though there were no final authority beyond itself.
The connection with Romans 1 is close. Humanity knew God but did not glorify him as God or give thanks. Refusal of the Creator produced disorder within the creation. Romans 3:18 describes that same fundamental rebellion as the absence of the fear of God. Corrupt speech, violence, deceit, and the destruction of peace are not isolated moral failures. They grow within a humanity whose relationship with its Creator has been disordered.
That Every Mouth May Be Closed
Romans 3:19
“Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God.”
The passages Paul has quoted come from Israel’s Scriptures. That matters because a Jewish hearer cannot simply take their descriptions of wickedness and apply them to the Gentile world. The law speaks “to those who are under the law.” The Scriptures that constituted Israel’s privilege also testify against sin within Israel.
The image of the closed mouth is judicial. A defendant who has exhausted every defense has nothing left to say against the charge. Moral judgment of others, possession of the law, circumcision, and covenant privilege have all failed to provide an exemption from the common human condition.
Paul then extends the result beyond those possessing the law: “all the world may be brought under the judgment of God.” Gentiles are accountable without possessing Torah, while Jews are accountable in the presence of Torah. Their different histories and privileges do not produce different verdicts concerning the fundamental problem Paul is addressing.
The whole world stands accountable before God, and the Scriptures themselves prevent those possessing them from claiming otherwise.
Through the Law Comes the Knowledge of Sin
Romans 3:20
“Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”
The law cannot become the means by which the lawbreaker escapes the indictment it pronounces. Paul says that “no flesh” will be justified by works of the law. The expression is comprehensive: human beings cannot establish righteousness before God by presenting their law-keeping as the basis for acquittal.
Psalm 143 provides language close to Paul’s statement:
Psalm 143:1–2
“Hear my prayer, Yahweh.
Listen to my petitions.
In your faithfulness and righteousness, relieve me.
Don’t enter into judgment with your servant,
for in your sight no man living is righteous.”
The Psalmist does not ask God to examine his record until sufficient merit is discovered. He appeals to God’s faithfulness and righteousness while acknowledging that no living person stands righteous before divine judgment on the basis of his own record.
Nothing in Paul’s argument requires a defect in the law. The law is not the problem. The sinner standing before it is. A true standard exposes the deviation from that standard precisely because it is true.
This is the force of Paul’s explanation that “through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” The law names sin, exposes it, and prevents human beings from redefining it according to convenience. God’s command reveals the contradiction between his righteous will and human conduct.
Paul is not claiming that exposing sin is the law’s only purpose. His concern here is narrower: the law cannot provide a lawbreaker with a righteous verdict on the basis of his works. The same revelation in which someone might boast also identifies the disobedience that makes such boasting impossible.
None Is Righteous
Paul’s scriptural testimony leaves no naturally righteous class standing over against the rest of humanity. Jews and Greeks alike are under sin. Human rebellion reaches understanding and desire, emerges through speech and conduct, damages relationships, and reflects the deeper refusal to live before God with the fear he is owed.
Israel’s possession of Scripture does not weaken that verdict because Israel’s Scriptures pronounce it. The law addresses those under the law before its indictment reaches outward to the accountability of the whole world. Greater revelation is genuine privilege, but it cannot transform the lawbreaker’s disobedience into righteousness.
The law tells the truth about both God’s standard and human sin. For that very reason, works of the law cannot supply the sinner with a successful defense before God. The law exposes the breach between the righteous Creator and the human beings accountable to him, leaving no room to boast in moral superiority, covenant privilege, or possession of revelation. Before God’s judgment, humanity has no case to make for its own righteousness.