1What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found?
2For if Abraham was justified by works, he has ground for boasting — but not before God.
3For what does the Scripture say? “And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
4Now to the one who works, the wage is not credited as a favor but as what is owed.
5But to the one who does not work, yet believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,
6just as David also speaks of the blessing of the person to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
7“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;
8blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”
9Is this blessing then only upon the circumcised, or also upon the uncircumcised? For we say, “Faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.”
10How then was it credited? While he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.
11And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of the faith he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe though uncircumcised, so that righteousness might be credited to them as well,
12and the father of the circumcised — to those who are not merely of the circumcision but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith our father Abraham had while uncircumcised.
13For the promise to Abraham or to his seed, that he would be heir of the world, was not through the law but through the righteousness of faith.
14For if those of the law are heirs, faith has been emptied and the promise has been nullified;
15for the law produces wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there transgression.
16For this reason it is by faith, so that it may be according to grace, in order that the promise might be secure to all the seed — not only to those of the law but also to those of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,
17as it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations” — in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls the things that are not as though they were.
18Against hope, in hope he believed, that he might become the father of many nations, according to what had been said: “So shall your seed be.”
19And without weakening 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 he did not waver in unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God,
21and being fully convinced that what God had promised he was also able to do.
22Therefore “it was also credited to him as righteousness.”
23Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was credited to him,
24but also for our sake, to whom it is going to be credited — those who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,
25who was handed over because of our trespasses and was raised because of our justification.
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