<p>3:13&nbsp;<i>Their throat is an open tomb, with their tongues they have used deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips</i>- The connection is surely with how Paul has said that all men, himself included, are liars (3:4,7). Yet the lie he had there in view was the lie that God will not save me, will not and cannot justify me as He has promised. And in this we falsely accuse God, putting Him in the dock. Paul talks of this in the harshest of language here, as if we are poison spitters, the seed of the serpent, in how we speak against God. This is a theme with Paul- to use exaggerated and extreme language about our disbelief and sinfulness.&nbsp;</p><p>Because of God's abhorrence of sin,&nbsp;sins of ignorance&nbsp;were still counted as offences against God, requiring atonement. This should really humble us-&nbsp;<i>if we are sensitive to this fact</i>. It therefore follows that we should lift up our voice for understanding of God's ways, for ignorant sin is still sin to Him- even though His judgment of us may possibly take into account our level of appreciation. In this context we should also be aware that God remembers unforgiven sin. Over time we can forget that we cursed our wife on 6.6.96 or whenever and never bowed down in repentance. But He doesn&rsquo;t. The haziness of our memories can work as a kind of pseudo-atonement for us. With Him there is no distinction between past and present and future. The sin remains before Him. By the law comes the knowledge of sin&nbsp;<i>to men</i>, but this doesn&rsquo;t mean they aren&rsquo;t culpable for those sins before God (Rom. 3:20; 7:7)- for sins of ignorance still needed atonement. &ldquo;Sin is not imputed when there is no law&rdquo; (Rom. 3:13) most likely means, in this light, that it is not imputed by those who do the sin. But God still notices&hellip;&nbsp; We only have to consider the passion of Peter's appeal to Israel in Acts 3:17-19: &quot;I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did your rulers... repent ye&nbsp;<i>therefore</i>&rdquo;. His Jewish hearers would immediately have spotted the allusion back to the Mosaic protocol about what to do when you and your rulers realized you'd committed sins of ignorance. But the sacrifice required was now not an animal- it was the sacrifice of a broken heart and a baptism into Jesus.</p><p>It should be noted that verses 13-18 are quoting from the Septuagint of Psalm 14- they aren&rsquo;t found in the Hebrew text. Time and again the inspired New Testament writers quote from the LXX rather than the Hebrew Masoretic text, often preferring the LXX over the MT, and in this case accepting the LXX addition of verses which the MT omits. It&rsquo;s hard to gauge the wider significance of this. The LXX versions of the genealogies in Genesis would, e.g., not support the contention that the Genesis 1 creation occurred 4000 years before the birth of Christ.&nbsp;</p>