The Example of Abraham

1What then shall we say ¹⁶that Abraham our father has discovered according to the flesh?

2If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

3For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

4Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as something owed to him.

5However, to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

6just as David also speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

7“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered.

8Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will never count sin.”

9Is this blessedness then only for the circumcised, or is it also for the uncircumcised? For we say, “Faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.”

10How then was it counted? When he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not when he was circumcised, but when he was uncircumcised.

11He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe when they are uncircumcised, so that righteousness might be counted to them ¹⁷as well,

12and so that he might be the father of those who are not only circumcised in the flesh, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had when he was uncircumcised.

The Promise Granted Through Faith

13For the promise to Abraham, or to his offspring, that he would be the heir of the world was not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

14For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith has been made void and the promise has been invalidated,

15because the law brings wrath; ¹⁸for where there is no law, there is no transgression.

16For this reason the promise comes by faith, so that it may be according to grace and be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring, not only to the one who is of the law, but also to the one who is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all

17(just as it is written, “I have made yoʋ the father of many nations”). He is our father in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not yet exist.

18Against all hope Abraham believed in hope that he would become the father of many nations according to what had been spoken: “So shall yoʋr offspring be.”

19Because he was not weak in faith, he ¹⁹did not consider his own body, ²⁰now as good as dead (since he was somewhere around a hundred years old), or the deadness of Sarah's womb.

20And he did not waver in unbelief at the promise of God but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God

21and being fully assured that God was able to do what he had promised.

22Therefore, “it was counted to him as righteousness.”

23Now the statement “it was counted to him” was not written only for Abraham's sake,

24but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,

25who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.