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 - <FI> Is<Fi> 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 <FI>is<Fi> in the uncircumcision of our father Abraham.
13 - For not through law <FI>is<Fi> 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 <FI>are<Fi> 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 <FI>is<Fi> transgression.
16 - Because of this <FI>it is<Fi> of faith, that <FI>it may be<Fi> according to grace, for the promise being sure to all the seed, not to that which <FI>is<Fi> of the law only, but also to that which <FI>is<Fi> 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.
