Romans 4:4-8

⁴If we receive wages for work that we do, those wages are not considered to be a gift. Instead, they are considered to be what we have earned. Similarly, if God erases the record of our sins because we did things to earn God's favor, we would not consider that God's erasing the record of our sin was a gift. Instead, we would consider it as what we had earned.

⁵But suppose that we do not do things to gain God's acceptance. Suppose that we instead trust in God, who erases the record of sins of wicked people. Then the erasing of the record of our sins because of our trusting in Christ is considered to be a gift to us, not something that we earned.

⁶Similarly, it is as David wrote in the Psalms about people being happy whose record of sins God has erased even though they have not done things to earn it. David wrote:

⁷God is pleased with people whose sins have been {whose sins he has} forgiven, and whose sins he has decided to forget DOU.

⁸God causes to be happy the people whose sins he no longer keeps a record of.