4:1What then shall we say that Abraham our father according to the flesh has found? 4:2For if Abraham was justified from works, he has glory, but not before God. 4:3For what does Scripture say? 4:3"Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for justice." 4:4But to him who works, the wage is not credited according to grace, but according to debt. 4:5But to him who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the impious, his faith is reckoned for justice according to the purpose of the grace of God. 4:6Just as David too speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits justice without works: "Blessed are those whose iniquities have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered.
4:8Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin." Does this blessedness then remain in circumcision only, or also in foreskin? 4:9For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for justice. 4:10How then was it reckoned? 4:10In circumcision, or in foreskin? 4:10Not in circumcision, but in foreskin. 4:11And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the justice of the faith which is in foreskin: so that he might be father of all those believing through foreskin, so that it might be reckoned to them too for justice: and that he might be father of circumcision not to those only who are from circumcision, but also to those who follow the footprints of the faith which is in the foreskin of our father Abraham.
4:13For not through the law was the promise to Abraham, or to his seed, that he should be heir of the world: but through the justice of faith. 4:14For if those who are from the law are heirs: faith has been emptied, the promise has been abolished. 4:15For the law works anger. 4:15For where there is no law, there is no transgression either. 4:16Therefore it is from faith, so that according to grace the promise may be firm for all the seed, not for that which is from the law only, but also for that which is from the faith of Abraham, who is father of all of us (just as it has been written: "Because I have set you as father of many nations") before God, whom he believed, who gives life to the dead, and calls those things which are not, as those which are: who against hope believed in hope, so that he might become father of many nations according to what was said to him: "So shall your seed be."
4:19And he was not weakened in faith, nor did he consider his own deadened body, since he was now almost a hundred years old, nor the deadened womb of Sarah. 4:20In the promise of God too he did not waver through distrust, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God: knowing most fully that whatever he has promised, he is powerful also to do. 4:22Therefore also it was reckoned to him for justice. 4:23But it has not been written on account of him only that it was reckoned to him for justice: but also on account of us, to whom it will be reckoned, believing in him who raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead, who was handed over on account of our offences, and rose again on account of our justification.