3
1 Speaker 1: “What then is the actual advantage of the Judean, and what do Judeans gain from removing their foreskins?”
2 Speaker 2: “Many things in many respects, but first of all that they have been entrusted with the deity’s very utterances.”
3 Speaker 1: “But so what? If some don’t actually trust in them, then won’t their distrust nullify the trust the deity has placed in them?”
4 Speaker 2: “Absolutely not. Let the deity be true to himself even if every single human being is false, as it is written in those Scriptures: ‘That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest be vindicated when thou art judged.’”
5 Speaker 1: “But if my injustice thereby actually highlights the justice of the deity then we can say something more, correct? Doesn’t it seem rather unfair of the deity to still pour out his judgmental anger? (Note I’m only suggesting this for the sake of the argument).”
6 Speaker 2: “Absolutely not. Then how would the deity actually judge the world?”
7 Speaker 1: “But if the unwavering truth of the deity overflows by way of my falsehood to enhance his reputation, then why am I still sentenced to death as a false person? 8 (And note how this is basically what I and my companions are unfairly reported by some as saying, namely, ‘let us all do evil so that good may result.’)”
Speaker 2: “The sentencing of such people to death is thoroughly deserved.”
9 Speaker 1: “But what then are we going to say about all this? Are we [Judeans] actually advantaged?”
Speaker 2: “Not in any real sense, I admit.”
“And in fact we [the Scriptures] publicly accuse both Judeans and pagans together of being in the grip of sin, 10 as it is written:
‘There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth,
there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way,
they are together become unprofitable;
there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre;
with their tongues they have used deceit;
the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.’
19 Now we know that everything the Teachings say includes in its address those who are formed by the Teachings. So the result of all this testimony is the realization that every mouth must be closed as the entirety of humanity is liable before God. 20 And it follows from this that ‘by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be just in his sight.’ (Rather, through Moses’s Teachings we gain an understanding of the power of sin [see ch. 7].)