If we did not know any better, we could easily interpret Romans 3:10–19 as a description of the world of the Gentiles: None is righteous, no, not one…All have turned aside…There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Is this description only about the Gentiles? Not at all. This Gentile
passage is made up entirely from quotes from the Old Testament. Therefore, all of this applies to all people—also to God’s own people: Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law.
This demonstrates that Jews do not occupy a special, privileged position when it comes to the actual judgment of their actions. The whole world (and not just the world of the Greeks and other nations) are worthy of punishment in the sight of God. No one (not even the Jew) can save himself by his own deeds, such as those extolled in Scripture (virtue, love, belief in the existence of God). The law, which clearly describes religious and moral deeds, serves to make the world discover its deficiency—first the Jew and also the Greek. [S]o that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
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10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;