The Gentiles do not have the Law may need to be changed to the past tense, “the Gentiles have not possessed the Law,” “the Gentiles did not receive the Law through Moses,” or “the Law which came through Moses was not given to the Gentiles.”
Of their own free will has been translated in a variety of ways: “instinctively” (Moffatt, An American Translation*), “by the light of nature” (Phillips, New English Bible) and “led by reason” (Jerusalem Bible, with a note indicating “guided by conscience, not by revealed law”). In most translations this is rendered “by nature” (see Revised Standard Version). The Good News Translation understands Paul to be speaking of the free and inner response of a man to the conscience given him by God. This is a “natural” response, not because it is something that one does by instinct or by nature, but because it is a response of the divinely created conscience within man. An expression for their own free will is difficult to render in a number of languages. In some instances it is simply equivalent to “whenever they themselves decide,” “whenever their own heart tells them to,” or “whenever their innermost thoughts say they should.”
The Law commands may need to be recast as “what is commanded in the Law” or “what the words written in the Law say that people should do.”
They are a law to themselves must not be rendered in such a way as to imply that people can do whatever they want to do. A more appropriate equivalent is “they themselves show what should or should not be done” or “they have demonstrated that they know what should or should not be done.”
In the last clause of verse 14 it may be again necessary to specify “the Law which comes from Moses”—for example, “even though they have not possessed the Law which came through Moses” or “even though the Law which came through Moses was not given to them.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .