Romans 4:1-13

¹What then, it may be asked, are we to say about Abraham, the ancestor of our nation?

²If he was pronounced righteous as the result of obedience, then he has something to boast of. Yes, but not before God.

³For what are the words of scripture? ‘Abraham had faith in God, and his faith was regarded by God as righteousness.’

⁴Now wages are regarded as due to the person who works, not as a favour, but as a debt;

⁵while, as for the person who does not rely on their obedience, but has faith in him who can pronounce the godless righteous, their faith is regarded by God as righteousness.

⁶In precisely the same way David speaks of the blessing pronounced on the person who is regarded by God as righteous apart from actions —

⁷‘Blessed are those whose wrong-doings have been forgiven and over whose sins a veil has been drawn!

⁸Blessed the man whom the Lord will never regard as sinful!’

⁹Is this blessing, then, pronounced on the circumcised only or on the uncircumcised as well? We say that — ‘Abraham's faith was regarded by God as righteousness.’

¹⁰Under what circumstances, then, did this take place? After his circumcision or before it?

¹¹Not after, but before. And it was as a sign of this that he received the rite of circumcision — to show the righteousness due to the faith of an uncircumcised man — in order that he might be the father of all who have faith in God even when uncircumcised, so that they also may be regarded by God as righteous;

¹²as well as father of the circumcised — to those who are not only circumcised, but who also follow our father Abraham in that faith which he had while still uncircumcised.

¹³For the promise that he should inherit the world did not come to Abraham or his descendants through Law, but through the righteousness due to faith.