4Q174

4QFlorilegium
Dead Sea Scrolls

[I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them that they may dwell there and be troubled no more by their] enemies. No son of iniquity [shall afflict them again] as formerly, from the day that [I set judges] over my people Israel. This is the House which [He will build for them in the] last days, as it is written in the book of Moses, In the sanctuary which Thy hands have established, O Lord, the Lord shall reign for ever and ever. This is the House into which [the unclean shall] never [enter, nor the uncircumcised,] nor the Ammonite, nor the Moabite, nor the half-breed, nor the foreigner, nor the stranger, ever; for there shall My Holy Ones be. [Its glory shall endure] for ever; it shall appear above it perpetually And strangers shall lay it waste no more, as they formerly laid waste the Sanctuary of Israel because of its sin. He has commanded that a Sanctuary of men be built for Himself, that there they may send up, like the smoke of incense, the works of the Law. And concerning His words to David, And I [willgive] you [rest] from all your enemies, this means that He will give them rest from all the children of Belial who cause them to stumble so that they may be destroyed [by their errors,] just as they came with a [devilish] plan to cause the [sons] of light to stumble and to devise against them a wicked plot, that [they might become subject] to Belial in their [wicked] straying.

Romans 3:20

New Testament

19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. 21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (although it is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed— 22 namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 24 But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 25 God publicly displayed him at his death as the mercy seat accessible through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because God in his forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed.

 Notes and References

"... Given Paul's Jewish background, and especially his own affirmations about his pre-Christian past as a Pharisee, one might expect that the phrase frequently used by him, 'the deeds of the law' (Galatians 2:16; 3:2, 5; Romans 2:15; 3:20, 28), or in its abbreviated form (Romans 3:27: 4:2, 6: 9:11, 32: 1:6) would have come from Pharisaism. It is a phrase that sounds like a slogan derived from his Jewish theological background, summing up the deeds prescribed or proscribed in the Mosaic Law, its 'precepts.' Yet when one looks for the Jewish background of such a slogan, one finds it neither in the Old Testament itself nor in the writings of the Pharisaic-rabbinic tradition ... the Hebrew equivalent has turned up in Qumran literature from Palestine itself (4QFlorilegium) ..."

Fitzmyer, Joseph A. According to Paul: Studies in the Theology of the Apostle (pp. 19-21) Paulist Press, 1993

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