Romans 2:12

Plain English Version

God gave the law to the Jewish people, so they know that law, and if they do bad things, God will punish them the way that law says. And the same too for people that are not Jewish, if they do bad things, he will punish them.

Cross References

John 19:11

Jesus said, “Yes, but you only have power over me because God gave it to you. So the man that sent me here is more guilty than you are.”

Romans 1:32

A long time ago, God said, “Anyone that does these sorts of things has to die.” That is true, and those people know that God said that, but they don’t take any notice of him. They keep on doing those bad things, and worse still, they push other people to do them.

Romans 4:15

People try to follow that law, but they can’t do it, and whenever they break that law, God gets angry with them and punishes them. So all the law does is give us trouble. (The only way people will not break the law is if there is no law to break.)

Romans 8:3

You see, the law that came from Moses couldn’t help us. We were too weak. If we thought about some bad thing that we wanted to do, then we couldn’t help ourselves, we just did it. That law just made us think about those bad things, and then we wanted to do them. But God set us free from all that. He sent his own son to us. Jesus had the same sort of body that we bad people have. Then God punished him instead of us. Jesus died instead of us.

Galatians 3:10

You see, God will make trouble for those people that reckon they are all right by just following the law. They think that, in the end, God will agree that they are all right. But they are wrong. God says this in his book, “You have to keep on doing everything in the law book, or God will punish you.”

Galatians 3:22

God says in his book that everyone does bad things. They can’t stop doing those bad things. But if we listen to what God promises us, and if we believe in Jesus Christ, he will save us.

James 2:10

Now think about God’s laws. If you don’t follow all of God’s laws, you are guilty. Suppose one man does everything in those laws except that he breaks one law, that man is guilty. Suppose another man breaks all those laws, he is guilty too. They are both guilty.