What Does Romans 3:12 Mean?
They have all gone out of the way. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good, not even one.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.THE KEY
The shared turn away from the way drains human life of usefulness and kindness, leaving no one able to claim a self-made exception.
THE MEANING
The verse places you within a shared human drift: we turn away from the way, and our common life becomes unable to yield what is useful and kind. Its final words leave no one outside the claim, not even the person who feels like an exception.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it undoes is that one person can remain good on their own, untouched by the shared human turning.
THE ROOT
ἐξέκλιναν
exeklinan
GROWS FROM
κλίνω
klinō
to bend, lean, or incline
The verb translated “gone out of the way” carries the image of bending or inclining away. The next clause names what follows that turn: a shared life becomes useless for what is needed.
ALSO GROWS
ekklinō: turn aside
ἐκκλίνω
This is the form behind the verse’s description of turning away from the way.
anaklinō: recline, lean back
ἀνακλίνω
The same base can describe the body leaning back; here the direction bends away from the way.
ἠχρεώθησαν
ēchreōthēsan
GROWS FROM
χρεία
chreia
need, necessity, or use
The Greek verb means to become useless, from the word family of need and use. The verse links the shared turning with a loss of capacity to meet what is needed.
ALSO GROWS
chreia: need or necessity
χρεία
It names what is needed, the measure against which something useful can serve.
achreios: useless, unfit for use
ἄχρειος
This adjective shows the privative form behind the verse’s language of becoming unprofitable.
χρηστότητα
chrēstotēta
GROWS FROM
χρηστός
chrēstos
kind, good, or useful
“doeth good” in this verse is chrēstotēta. The word rendered “good” here is χρηστότητα, goodness expressed as kindness. Its word family also carries the shade of being useful, echoing the previous clause: the turning leaves no one producing this kind of goodness.
ALSO GROWS
chrēstos: kind, good, or serviceable
χρηστός
The adjective holds kindness and usefulness together beneath the English word “good.”
chrēstotēs: kindness or goodness
χρηστότης
This noun names the quality that the verse says no one is doing.
THE PATTERN
When people turn from the way together, their shared life loses its capacity for goodness and what is useful.
They all turn aside; together they are soiled. There is none doing good, not even one.All of us like sheep have wandered; each has turned to his own way, and the LORD has caused the crookedness of us all to fall upon him.Because, having known God, they did not give him weight as God, nor did they give thanks; but they were made empty in their reckonings, and their unjoined heart was darkened.THE THREAD
They all turn aside; together they are soiled. There is none doing good, not even one.Paul’s sentence follows the Psalm’s Greek sequence: turning aside, becoming useless, and “not one” doing good. The Psalm makes the scope plain: the claim reaches you as part of a shared human drift, not as a diagnosis reserved for someone else.
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