| 1 | What, then, shall we say Abraham our father, to have found, according to flesh? |
| 2 | for if Abraham by works was declared righteous, he hath to boast -- but not before god; |
| 3 | for what doth the writing say? `And Abraham did believe God, and it was reckoned to him -- to righteousness;` |
| 4 | and to him who is working, the reward is not reckoned of grace, but of debt; |
| 5 | and to him who is not working, and is believing upon Him who is declaring righteous the impious, his faith is reckoned -- to righteousness: |
| 6 | even as David also doth speak of the happiness of the man to whom God doth reckon righteousness apart from works: |
| 7 | `Happy they whose lawless acts were forgiven, and whose sins were covered; |
| 8 | happy the man to whom the Lord may not reckon sin.` |
| 9 | [Is] this happiness, then, upon the circumcision, or also upon the uncircumcision -- for we say that the faith was reckoned to Abraham -- to righteousness? |
| 10 | how then was it reckoned? he being in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision; |
| 11 | and a sign he did receive of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith in the uncircumcision, for his being father of all those believing through uncircumcision, for the righteousness also being reckoned to them, |
| 12 | and father of circumcision to those not of circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of the faith, that [is] in the uncircumcision of our father Abraham. |
| 13 | For not through law [is] the promise to Abraham, or to his seed, of his being heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith; |
| 14 | for if they who are of law [are] heirs, the faith hath been made void, and the promise hath been made useless; |
| 15 | for the law doth work wrath; for where law is not, neither [is] transgression. |
| 16 | Because of this [it is] of faith, that [it may be] according to grace, for the promise being sure to all the seed, not to that which [is] of the law only, but also to that which [is] of the faith of Abraham, |
| 17 | who is father of us all (according as it hath been written -- `A father of many nations I have set thee,`) before Him whom he did believe -- God, who is quickening the dead, and is calling the things that be not as being. |
| 18 | Who, against hope in hope did believe, for his becoming father of many nations according to that spoken: `So shall thy seed be;` |
| 19 | and not having been weak in the faith, he did not consider his own body, already become dead, (being about a hundred years old,) and the deadness of Sarah`s womb, |
| 20 | and at the promise of God did not stagger in unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, having given glory to God, |
| 21 | and having been fully persuaded that what He hath promised He is able also to do: |
| 22 | wherefore also it was reckoned to him to righteousness. |
| 23 | And it was not written on his account alone, that it was reckoned to him, |
| 24 | but also on ours, to whom it is about to be reckoned -- to us believing on Him who did raise up Jesus our Lord out of the dead, |
| 25 | who was delivered up because of our offences, and was raised up because of our being declared righteous. |
