Romans 2 - First Nations Version

WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE?

¹ But you who judge and decide the guilt of those who walk in these broken ways have no excuse for doing so. When you decide the guilt of others, you are only proving your own guilt, because you are doing the same kinds of things.

² For we know that when the Great Spirit decides the guilt of the ones who do this, his judgment is always honorable and true.

³ Tell me, when you do the same kinds of things that you judge others for, do you think what you have done will be hidden from the eyes of the Great Spirit?

⁴ Or do you hold bitter thoughts about Creator’s kindness, patience, and willingness to bear with others? Do you not know that it is the kindness of the Great Spirit that draws you back to the path of his right ways?

⁵ Because your hearts are unwilling to bend to the ways of the Great Spirit, your lives are becoming filled with the things that make the Great Spirit angry. A day is coming when Creator’s great anger against these things and his decision to do what is right will be made clear.

CREATOR WILL BE THE ONE TO DECIDE

⁶ Creator will honor each of us for what we have done.

⁷ He will honor the ones who have walked with firm steps on a path of doing good, and those who seek to live in the ways of beauty, honor, and spiritual purity. The life of the world to come that never fades away, full of beauty and harmony, will be waiting for them.

⁸ But the ones who live only for themselves, who refuse to walk the path of truth and stand against the right ways of the Great Spirit, will face a coming storm of great anger.

CREATOR TREATS ALL THE SAME WAY

⁹ Trouble and sorrow await all human beings who walk an evil path. This is true, first of all for the members of the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel) but also for the Outside Nations.

¹⁰ But beauty, honor, and peace await all who walk in a good way. To the Tribal Members first, and also for the Outside Nations.

¹¹ For the Great Spirit does not favor one over the other.

¹² For all the Outside Nations who have followed their bad hearts and broken ways, even though they had no written law to follow, will come to a bad end. And all who were given the tribal law but also followed their bad heart and broken ways, their own tribal law will decide against them.

¹³ For it is not the ones who hear the law who have good standing with Creator but the ones who do what it says.

CREATION’S LAW WRITTEN ON HEARTS

¹⁴ If the Outside Nations, who never heard the law, naturally do what they know is right, the things instructed by the law, this natural law is all they need.

¹⁵ They show that creation’s law is already at work within them, carved into their hearts. There is a voice deep within their inner being that speaks to them about what is right and what is wrong.

¹⁶ The good story that I tell says there will come a day when the Knower of Hearts, through Creator Sets Free (Jesus) the Chosen One, will bring to light what is good and bad about the secrets hidden in every human heart.

A WORD OF WARNING

¹⁷ To those among you who call yourselves Tribal Members, who take your stand on tribal law and boast about your knowledge of the Great Spirit,

¹⁸ because you have been instructed by this law, you are sure you know what Creator wants and what is honorable to him.

¹⁹ You see yourselves as guides to the blind, lights to those in dark places,

²⁰ wisdomkeepers to the unwise, and instructors of children. You, because you have the law, claim to be the holders of all truth.

²¹ So then, you who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who tell others not to steal, do you take what is not yours?

²² You who instruct others to be faithful in marriage, do you sleep around from lodge to lodge? You who despise those who pray to spirit-images, do you steal from their sacred lodges?

²³ When you fail to follow the same tribal law you brag about, you bring insult to the Great Spirit.

²⁴ This is in agreement with the Sacred Teachings that say, “It is because of you that the Outside Nations are speaking against the Great Spirit.”

²⁵ The cutting of the flesh ceremony has honor if you follow the instructions of our tribal law. But if you fail to follow the law, your cutting of the flesh ceremony is worthless.

²⁶ If someone who has never participated in the ceremony walks by nature in the right ways that the law teaches, then it will be as if he had participated in that ceremony.

²⁷ So then, if someone from an Outside Nation, who never participated in the cutting of the flesh ceremony, does by nature what the law instructs, that Outsider’s ways will expose the guilt of the one who participated in the ceremony. For if he does not walk true to the whole written law, he remains guilty of breaking the law.

A MATTER OF THE HEART

^28-29 Being a true Tribal Member is a matter of the heart, not of blood or ceremonial law. It is the same with the cutting of the flesh ceremony. It is a spiritual matter, not a physical one. One might perform the ceremony perfectly according to tribal law for all to see, but it is not what happens on the outside that counts. It is what happens spiritually, on the inside, that has true meaning. Such a person seeks honor from the Great Spirit and not from human beings.