Essentially, Paul is continuing his diatribe against the self-righteous Jewish critic that he is responding to. Sure, you can be proud of your circumcision, but as soon as you break one of the 613 commandments of the Torah, then you're just as bad as the Gentile which only had seven laws to follow (according to the rabbis anyway; they believed that Noah was given seven laws which were the laws that all of humanity were responsible for).

Paul brilliantly uses the Tanach as his defense, showing that he's not just making this stuff up, so to speak. Verse 24 refers to Isaiah 52:5. Verse 25 refers to Jeremiah 9:25-26 (cf. Deut. 10:16, Jeremiah 4:4, countless others). The idea of the heart being more important than a body part is not new to Jesus or Christianity. (You could make an intriguing side argument about how the symbol of being justified was no longer just a male thing anymore...)

I think 2:22 has some interesting implications, especially "You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?" What are the modern implications of this? What do we hate and yet profit from? Is this a warning to all Christians working in trashy retails stores? I'm not sure, but it's something worth pondering.

Paul's use of the word "praise" in 2:29 is a wordplay on the word "Jew" which derives from the name "Judah" which comes from the Hebrew word yada: to praise. Again these beginning chapters are a lot about racial reconciliation. To speak of God praising an uncircumcised Gentile would be quite the slap in the face for a Jew; and - at least in Paul's view - exactly what they needed!

Romans 2:17-29