---
title: "Romans 3 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/romans/3/
description: "The advantages of the Jews. All men are sinners and none can be justified by the… Romans 3 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Romans 3

Romans 3 is chapter 3 of 16 in the Letter to the Romans. Here are all 31 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> The advantages of the Jews. All men are sinners and none can be justified by the works of the law, but only by the grace of Christ.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Romans 3 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. So then, what more is the Jew, or what is the usefulness of circumcision?
2. Much in every way: First of all, certainly, because the eloquence of God was entrusted to them.
3. But what if some of them have not believed? Shall their unbelief nullify the faith of God? Let it not be so!
4. For God is truthful, but every man is deceitful; just as it was written: “Therefore, you are justified in your words, and you will prevail when you give judgment.”
5. But if even our injustice points to the justice of God, what shall we say? Could God be unfair for inflicting wrath?
6. (I am speaking in human terms.) Let it not be so! Otherwise, how would God judge this world?
7. For if the truth of God has abounded, through my falseness, unto his glory, why should I still be judged as such a sinner?
8. And should we not do evil, so that good may result? For so we have been slandered, and so some have claimed we said; their condemnation is just.
9. What is next? Should we try to excel ahead of them? By no means! For we have accused all Jews and Greeks to be under sin,
10. just as it was written: “There is no one who is just.
11. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God.
12. All have gone astray; together they have become useless. There is no one who does good; there is not even one.
13. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues, they have been acting deceitfully. The venom of asps is under their lips.
14. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
15. Their feet are swift to shed blood.
16. Grief and unhappiness are in their ways.
17. And the way of peace they have not known.
18. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
19. But we know that whatever the law speaks, it speaks to those who are in the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the entire world may be subject to God.
20. For in his presence no flesh shall be justified by the works of the law. For knowledge of sin is through the law.
21. But now, without the law, the justice of God, to which the law and the prophets have testified, has been made manifest.
22. And the justice of God, through the faith of Jesus Christ, is in all those and over all those who believe in him. For there is no distinction.
23. For all have sinned and all are in need of the glory of God.
24. We have been justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25. whom God has offered as a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to reveal his justice for the remission of the former offenses,
26. and by the forbearance of God, to reveal his justice in this time, so that he himself might be both the Just One and the Justifier of anyone who is of the faith of Jesus Christ.
27. So then, where is your self-exaltation? It is excluded. Through what law? That of works? No, but rather through the law of faith.
28. For we judge a man to be justified by faith, without the works of the law.
29. Is God of the Jews only and not also of the Gentiles? On the contrary, of the Gentiles also.
30. For One is the God who justifies circumcision by faith and uncircumcision through faith.
31. Are we then destroying the law through faith? Let it not be so! Instead, we are making the law stand.

## Romans 3 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Quid ergo amplius Judæo est? aut quæ utilitas circumcisionis?
2. Multum per omnem modum. Primum quidem quia credita sunt illis eloquia Dei.
3. Quid enim si quidam illorum non crediderunt? numquid incredulitas illorum fidem Dei evacuabit? Absit.
4. Est autem Deus verax: omnis autem homo mendax, sicut scriptum est: Ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis: et vincas cum judicaris.
5. Si autem iniquitas nostra justitiam Dei commendat, quid dicemus? Numquid iniquus est Deus, qui infert iram?
6. secundum hominem dico. Absit. Alioquin quomodo judicabit Deus hunc mundum?
7. Si enim veritas Dei in meo mendacio abundavit in gloriam ipsius: quid adhuc et ego tamquam peccator judicor?
8. et non (sicut blasphemamur, et sicut aiunt quidam nos dicere) faciamus mala ut veniant bona: quorum damnatio justa est.
9. Quid ergo? præcellimus eos? Nequaquam. Causati enim sumus Judæos et Græcos omnes sub peccato esse,
10. sicut scriptum est: Quia non est justus quisquam:
11. non est intelligens, non est requirens Deum.
12. Omnes declinaverunt, simul inutiles facti sunt: non est qui faciat bonum, non est usque ad unum.
13. Sepulchrum patens est guttur eorum, linguis suis dolose agebant: venenum aspidum sub labiis eorum:
14. quorum os maledictione, et amaritudine plenum est:
15. veloces pedes eorum ad effundendum sanguinem:
16. contritio et infelicitas in viis eorum:
17. et viam pacis non cognoverunt:
18. non est timor Dei ante oculos eorum.
19. Scimus autem quoniam quæcumque lex loquitur, iis, qui in lege sunt, loquitur: ut omne os obstruatur, et subditus fiat omnis mundus Deo:
20. quia ex operibus legis non justificabitur omnis caro coram illo. Per legem enim cognitio peccati.
21. Nunc autem sine lege justitia Dei manifestata est: testificata a lege et prophetis.
22. Justitia autem Dei per fidem Jesu Christi in omnes et super omnes qui credunt in eum: non enim est distinctio:
23. omnes enim peccaverunt, et egent gloria Dei.
24. Justificati gratis per gratiam ipsius, per redemptionem quæ est in Christo Jesu,
25. quem proposuit Deus propitiationem per fidem in sanguine ipsius, ad ostensionem justitiæ suæ propter remissionem præcedentium delictorum
26. in sustentatione Dei, ad ostensionem justitiæ ejus in hoc tempore: ut sit ipse justus, et justificans eum, qui est ex fide Jesu Christi.
27. Ubi est ergo gloriatio tua? Exclusa est. Per quam legem? Factorum? Non: sed per legem fidei.
28. Arbitramur enim justificari hominem per fidem sine operibus legis.
29. An Judæorum Deus tantum? nonne et gentium? Immo et gentium:
30. quoniam quidem unus est Deus, qui justificat circumcisionem ex fide, et præputium per fidem.
31. Legem ergo destruimus per fidem? Absit: sed legem statuimus.

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- CCC ¶ 2465: Living in the Truth ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 708: God's Spirit and Word in the Time of the Promises ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 1992: Justification ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 2543: The Desires of the Spirit ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 1987: Justification ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 705: God's Spirit and Word in the Time of the Promises ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 2809: "Hallowed be Thy Name" ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 399: The Fall ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 433: Jesus ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 1460: The Acts of the Penitent ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 4: God only is essentially true. All men in their own capacity are liable to lies and errors: nevertheless God, who is the truth, will make good his promise of keeping his church in all truth. See St. John 16. 13.
- Verse 10: viz. By virtue either of the law of nature, or of the law of Moses; but only by faith and grace.
- Verse 28: “By faith” … The faith, to which the apostle here attributes man's justification, is not a presumptuous assurance of our being justified; but a firm and lively belief of all that God has revealed or promised. Heb. 11. A faith working through charity in Jesus Christ. Gal. 5. 6. In short, a faith which takes in hope, love, repentance, and the use of the sacraments. And the works which he here excludes, are only the works of the law: that is, such as are done by the law of nature, or that of Moses, antecedent to the faith of Christ: but by no means, such as follow faith, and proceed from it.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Thu, Oct 14, 2027 (computed): Thursday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Romans 3:21-30

Dates after May 31, 2027 are computed by Bless from the US Lectionary cycle — confirm with your parish.

Source: Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), public domain; Latin: Clementine Vulgate (1592).