So then, it does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

And if it is by grace, then it is no longer by works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.

You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.”

so that no one may boast in His presence.

For who makes you so superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim that anything comes from us, but our competence comes from God.

We who are Jews by birth and not Gentile “sinners”

know that a man is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing.

But the Scripture pronounces all things confined by sin, so that by faith in Jesus Christ the promise might be given to those who believe.

You who are trying to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.