Chapter 4

  What shall we say then that Abraham our father according to flesh has found?  

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  For if Abraham has been justified on the principle of works, he has whereof to boast: but not before God;  

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  for what does the scripture say? And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.  

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  Now to him that works the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but of debt:  

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  but to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.  

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  Even as David also declares the blessedness of the man to whom God reckons righteousness without works:  

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  Blessed [they] whose lawlessnesses have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered:  

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  blessed [the] man to whom [the] Lord shall not at all reckon sin.  

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  [Does] this blessedness then [rest] on the circumcision, or also on the uncircumcision? For we say that faith has been reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.  

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  How then has it been reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.  

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  And he received [the] sign of circumcision [as] seal of the righteousness of faith which [he had] being in uncircumcision, that he might be [the] father of all them that believe being in uncircumcision, that righteousness might be reckoned to them also;  

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  and father of circumcision, not only to those who are of [the] circumcision, but to those also who walk in the steps of the faith, during uncircumcision, of our father Abraham.  

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  For [it was] not by law that the promise was to Abraham, or to his seed, that he should be heir of [the] world, but by righteousness of faith.  

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  For if they which [are] of law be heirs, faith is made vain, and the promise made of no effect.  

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  For law works wrath; but where no law is neither [is there] transgression.  

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  Therefore [it is] on the principle of faith, that [it might be] according to grace, in order to the promise being sure to all the seed, not to that only which [is] of the law, but to that also which [is] of Abraham's faith, who is father of us all,  

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  (according as it is written, I have made thee father of many nations,) before the God whom he believed, who quickens the dead, and calls the things which be not as being;  

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  who against hope believed in hope to his becoming father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be:  

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  and not being weak in faith, he considered not his own body already become dead, being about a hundred years old, and the deadening of Sarah's womb,  

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  and hesitated not at the promise of God through unbelief; but found strength in faith, giving glory to God;  

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  and being fully persuaded that what he has promised he is able also to do;  

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  wherefore also it was reckoned to him as righteousness.  

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  Now it was not written on his account alone that it was reckoned to him,  

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  but on ours also, to whom, believing on him who has raised from among [the] dead Jesus our Lord,  

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  who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification, it will be reckoned.  

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