Romans 4

1What then are we to say that Abraham, our ancestor by natural descent, has found? 2Suppose Abraham was declared righteous because of his works: then he would have grounds for boasting, but not in God’s presence. 3What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and that was counted to him as righteousness.” 4A worker’s wages are not counted as grace but as what is owed. 5But to someone who does no work, yet believes in the God who declares the ungodly righteous, that faith is counted as righteousness. 6David says the same when he speaks of the happiness of the one whom God counts as righteous apart from works: 7“How happy are those whose wrongs are forgiven, whose sins are covered over! 8How happy is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them!”

9Is this blessing, then, only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was counted to him as righteousness. 10Under what circumstances, then, was it counted? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before. 11Circumcision was given to him afterward as a sign, a seal on the righteousness that was already his by faith before he was circumcised. In this way he is father to everyone who believes without being circumcised, so that righteousness is counted to them. 12And he is father to the circumcised as well: not to those who are merely circumcised, but to those who walk the same road of faith our father Abraham walked while still uncircumcised.

13The promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his offspring through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14If the heirs are those who rely on the law, faith is made empty and the promise is worthless. 15The law brings about wrath. But where there is no law, there is no breaking of the law either.

16So the promise comes through faith, in order that it may rest on grace and stand firm for every one of Abraham’s offspring: not only for those who belong to the law, but also for those who belong to the faith of Abraham, the father of all of us. 17Scripture says, “I have made you father of many nations.” Before God he is our father, the God he believed, who brings the dead to life and calls into being things that do not exist. 18Hoping when there was no ground for hope, Abraham believed, and so he became the father of many nations, as God had said to him, “That is how many your offspring will be.” 19His faith did not weaken when he looked at his own body, as good as dead now that he was about a hundred years old, or at the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 20He did not doubt God’s promise or waver in unbelief. Instead he grew strong in faith and gave glory to God, 21fully convinced that God had the power to carry out what he had promised. 22That is why “it was counted to him as righteousness.”

23The words “it was counted to him” were not written for Abraham alone, 24but for us as well. It will be counted to us who believe in the God who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25Jesus was handed over to die because of our trespasses, and he was raised so that we would be declared righteous.