Romans 3:10

Romans 3:10, in plain English

Paul quotes Scripture to prove his point: not even one person is righteous on their own. Not one.

Why it's here

Paul is drawing from the Psalms and Isaiah to show that this isn't his opinion—it's what Scripture itself declares about the human condition. He's using the very law and prophets that Jews revered to make his case.

Who's speaking

Paul, quoting the Psalms

Where it sits in the story

You're watching Paul show that the Old Testament itself bears witness to human fallenness. God's own word said this long before Paul. He's not introducing a new idea; he's showing what was always there.

The scholarly reading

As Scripture declares, there exists no single righteous person—not even one.

Language and setting

Paul begins a catena of Old Testament citations (verses 10-18) drawn primarily from the Psalms and Isaiah. This first citation comes from Psalm 14:3 (also Psalm 53:3), and the phrase 'not even one' (Greek: oudè heis) is emphatic and universal in scope. The Greek construction reflects the LXX, which Paul's audience would have recognized. This represents what medieval scholastics called a *sententia* or binding judgment from the Hebrew canon.

Voice

Paul, citing the Psalms

Significance

The psalmist's lament about human corruption becomes Paul's proof-text for anthropological realism: no moral achievement, however impressive, exempts any human from the need for divine grace—a theme that structures the entire soteriology of Romans.

8Why not say, as some slanderously claim that we say, “Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is deserved!

9What then? Are we any better? Not at all. For we have already made the charge that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin.

10As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one.

11There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

Read all of Romans 3 — The courtroom falls silent. Every mouth is stopped. Then Paul introduces a righteousness that comes not from the law but through faith.