Romans 3:13-18 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” 14“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” 15“Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17and the way of peace they do not know.” 18“There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Paul puts together a “pearl string” of Old Testament quotations to add support to his central claim that everyone is guilty of sin. Paul quotes parts of Psalms 14:1-3; 53:1-3; Eccles. 7:2; Psalm 5:9; Psalm 140:3; Psalm 10:7; Isaiah 59:7,8; Psalm 36:1. One topic is how the mouth speaks foul words. This may be due to how sin shows up in what people say and how they say it. Another issue is that they how they live leads to tragedy and problem. They do not experience any peace. Their lives are broken. The bottom line is that they do not fear God. The fear of God is related to worship. The core problem with sin is worshipping something or someone else other than God. Fear of the Lord should be shown by sincere worship and commitment of the self to God. Paul will write about this later in ch. 6.
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