Righteousness

Righteousness is the quality or state of "being morally right or justifiable", rooted in religious or divine law, with a broader spectrum of moral correctness, justice, and virtuous living as dictated by a higher authority or set of spiritual beliefs.

Rectitude, often a synonym for righteousness, is about personal moral values and the internal compass that guides an individual’s decisions and actions. It can be found in Indian, Chinese, and Abrahamic religions and traditions, among others, as a theological concept. For example, from various perspectives in Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, Taoism, and Judaism. It is an attribute that implies that a person's actions are justified, and can have the connotation that the person has been "judged" as living a moral life, relative to the religion’s doctrines.

William Tyndale (translator of the Bible into English in 1526) remodeled the word after an earlier word rihtwis, which would have yielded modern English *rightwise or *rightways. He used it to translate the Hebrew root צדק tzedek, which appears over five hundred times in the Hebrew Bible, and the Greek word δίκαιος (dikaios), which appears more than two hundred times in the New Testament.

Etymologically, it comes from Old English rihtwīs, from riht 'right' + wīs 'manner, state, condition' (as opposed to wrangwīs, "wrongful"). The change in the ending of the word in the 16th century was due to association with words such as bounteous.

Ethics is a major branch of philosophy that encompasses principles leading to right conduct. Rushworth Kidder states that "standard definitions of ethics have typically included such phrases as 'the science of the ideal human character' or 'the science of moral duty'". Richard William Paul and Linda Elder define ethics as "a set of concepts and principles that guide us in determining what behavior helps or harms sentient creatures". The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states that the word ethics is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality' ... and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group or individual".

In the New Testament, the word righteousness, a translation for the Greek word dikaiosunē, is used in the sense of 'being righteous before others' (e.g. Matthew 5:20) or 'being righteous before God' (e.g. Romans 1:17). William Lane Craig argues that we should think of God as the "paradigm, the locus, the source of all moral value and standards".

In Matthew's account of the Baptism of Jesus, Jesus tells John the Baptist, "it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" as Jesus requests that John perform the rite for him. The Sermon on the Mount contains the memorable commandment, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness".

A secondary meaning of the Greek word is 'justice', which is used to render it in a few places by a few Bible translations, e.g. in Matthew 6:33 in the New English Bible.