Romans 2:19-25

2:19 and if you are convinced ¹  that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 2:20 an educator of the senseless, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the essential features of knowledge and of the truth – 2:21 therefore ²  you who teach someone else, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 2:22 You who tell others not to commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor ³  idols, do you rob temples? 2:23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by transgressing the law! 2:24 For just as it is written, “the name of God is being blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” ⁴ 

2:25 For circumcision ⁵  has its value if you practice the law, but ⁶  if you break the law, ⁷  your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

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¹ tn This verb is parallel to the verbs in vv. 17-18a, so it shares the conditional meaning even though the word “if” is not repeated.

² tn The structure of vv. 21-24 is difficult. Some take these verses as the apodosis of the conditional clauses (protases) in vv. 17-20; others see vv. 17-20 as an instance of anacoluthon (a broken off or incomplete construction).

³ tn Or “detest.”

⁴ sn A quotation from Isa 52:5.

⁵ sn Circumcision refers to male circumcision as prescribed in the OT, which was given as a covenant to Abraham in Gen 17:10-14. Its importance for Judaism can hardly be overstated: According to J. D. G. Dunn (Romans [WBC], 1:120) it was the “single clearest distinguishing feature of the covenant people.” J. Marcus has suggested that the terms used for circumcision (περιτομή, peritomh) and uncircumcision (ἀκροβυστία, akrobustia) were probably derogatory slogans used by Jews and Gentiles to describe their opponents (“The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Rome,” NTS 35 [1989]: 77-80).

⁶ tn This contrast is clearer and stronger in Greek than can be easily expressed in English.

⁷ tn Grk “if you should be a transgressor of the law.”