²⁸ Now you,^[a] my brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, like Isaac.

²³ One, the child of the enslaved woman, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise.^(A)

⁸ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants. ⁹ For the word of the promise is this: “About this time I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.”^(A)

²⁹ And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,^[a] heirs according to the promise.^(A)

God’s Promise Realized through Faith

¹³ For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.^{(A) 14} For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. ¹⁵ For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression.^(B)

¹⁶ For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us,^{(C) 17} as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”), in the presence of the God in whom he believed,^[a] who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.^{(D) 18} Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So shall your descendants be.”

²⁵ You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’^(A)