Romans 4

¹What then shall we say that Abraham our forefather has found according to the flesh?

²For if Abraham was justified by works, he has a ground of boasting — but not before God.

³For what does the Scripture say? And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.

⁴Now to the one who works, the wage is not reckoned according to grace but according to debt;

⁵But to the one who does not work but believes upon the one who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness —

⁶just as also David declares the blessedness of the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

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

⁸Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will by no means count sin.

⁹Is this blessing then upon the circumcised, or also upon the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.

¹⁰How then was it reckoned? While in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

¹¹And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith he had while in uncircumcision, so that he might be the father of all who believe while in uncircumcision, so that righteousness might be reckoned [also] to them —

¹²and the father of circumcision -- not to those who are of circumcision only, but also to those who walk in the tracks of the faith our father Abraham had in uncircumcision.

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

¹⁴For if those from the law are heirs, faith has been emptied and the promise has been rendered inoperative —

¹⁵For the law produces wrath; but where there is no law, there is no transgression either.

¹⁶For this reason it is from faith, so that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be secure for all the seed — not only to that which is from the law, but also to that which is from the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all of us —

¹⁷as it has been written, that a father of many nations I have appointed you -- before whom he believed, that is, God, who gives life to the dead and calls the things that are not as though they are;

¹⁸who against hope, upon hope, believed, so that he might become the father of many nations, according to what had been spoken: 'So shall your offspring be.'

¹⁹And not having weakened in faith, he considered his own body, [already] as good as dead — being about a hundred years old — and the deadness of Sarah's womb,

²⁰yet with respect to the promise of God he did not waver in unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, having given glory to God,

²¹and being fully assured that what he has promised he is also able to perform.

²²Therefore also it was reckoned to him for righteousness.

²³Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was reckoned to him,

²⁴but also on account of us, to whom it is about to be reckoned -- to those who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,

²⁵who was delivered over because of our trespasses and was raised for our justification.