14“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16ruin and misery lie in their wake,
17and the way of peace they have not known.”
18“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
All Have Sinned
ruin and misery lie in their wake, Romans 3:16 · Berean Standard Bible
Everywhere humans go without God's guidance, we leave destruction and misery in our wake.
Paul is describing the trail of damage that human sinfulness leaves. It's not just that individuals sin; it's that sin creates systems of ruin. Families, communities, entire civilizations bear the wreckage.
Paul, quoting Isaiah
You're seeing the cosmic scope of sin. It's not individual actions in isolation; it's a force that corrupts everything it touches, rippling outward in consequences.
Destruction and misery accompany their path.
Continuing Isaiah 59:7-8, Paul emphasizes the consequences of sin: it does not isolate itself to the perpetrator but spreads ruin (Greek: suntrimma, 'breaking, crushing') and wretchedness (Greek: talaiporía, 'distress, hardship') in its wake. The image is of a destructive trail left by those who have departed from God's way. This moves from individual culpability to collective suffering, suggesting sin's social and structural dimensions.
Paul, citing Isaiah
This echoes the cascading consequences of sin throughout the Hebrew narrative—how one person's transgression (Adam) or violence (Cain) ripples outward to affect entire communities and generations.
14“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16ruin and misery lie in their wake,
17and the way of peace they have not known.”
18“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Read all of Romans 3 — The courtroom falls silent. Every mouth is stopped. Then Paul introduces a righteousness that comes not from the law but through faith.
This page covers one. BibleKey does all 31,102 — tap any verse for its meaning, any word for its Hebrew or Greek root, and keep reading without leaving the chapter.
NIV, NLT, NKJV, KJV and the Berean — plus the Catholic NLT-CE and Douay-Rheims, with the full deuterocanon in the reading order.
Tap any of the 31,102 for what it means, and any word for its Hebrew or Greek root, without leaving the chapter.
Start recording at church and put your phone away. You get the transcript, the key moments, and every verse referenced.
Say what's sitting on your heart and hear it back as a real prayer, in a warm voice. Keep the ones that land.
The whole Bible in a year — five chapters a day, five days a week, weekends off. Built to be finished.
A verse each morning with its meaning, how it lands today, something to sit with, and a prayer to close it.
Not just the famous ones. BibleKey is free on iPhone and iPad.
Download on the App StoreFree on iPhone & iPad