Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

4 What, then, shall we say Abraham our father, to have found, according to flesh?

² for if Abraham by works was declared righteous, he hath to boast -- but not before god;

³ for what doth the writing say? `And Abraham did believe God, and it was reckoned to him -- to righteousness;'

⁴ and to him who is working, the reward is not reckoned of grace, but of debt;

⁵ and to him who is not working, and is believing upon Him who is declaring righteous the impious, his faith is reckoned -- to righteousness:

⁶ even as David also doth speak of the happiness of the man to whom God doth reckon righteousness apart from works:

⁷ `Happy they whose lawless acts were forgiven, and whose sins were covered;

⁸ happy the man to whom the Lord may not reckon sin.'

⁹ [Is] this happiness, then, upon the circumcision, or also upon the uncircumcision -- for we say that the faith was reckoned to Abraham -- to righteousness?

¹⁰ how then was it reckoned? he being in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision;

¹¹ and a sign he did receive of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith in the uncircumcision, for his being father of all those believing through uncircumcision, for the righteousness also being reckoned to them,

¹² and father of circumcision to those not of circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of the faith, that [is] in the uncircumcision of our father Abraham.

¹³ For not through law [is] the promise to Abraham, or to his seed, of his being heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith;

¹⁴ for if they who are of law [are] heirs, the faith hath been made void, and the promise hath been made useless;

¹⁵ for the law doth work wrath; for where law is not, neither [is] transgression.

¹⁶ Because of this [it is] of faith, that [it may be] according to grace, for the promise being sure to all the seed, not to that which [is] of the law only, but also to that which [is] of the faith of Abraham,

¹⁷ who is father of us all (according as it hath been written -- `A father of many nations I have set thee,') before Him whom he did believe -- God, who is quickening the dead, and is calling the things that be not as being.

¹⁸ Who, against hope in hope did believe, for his becoming father of many nations according to that spoken: `So shall thy seed be;'

¹⁹ and not having been weak in the faith, he did not consider his own body, already become dead, (being about a hundred years old,) and the deadness of Sarah's womb,

²⁰ and at the promise of God did not stagger in unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, having given glory to God,

²¹ and having been fully persuaded that what He hath promised He is able also to do:

²² wherefore also it was reckoned to him to righteousness.

²³ And it was not written on his account alone, that it was reckoned to him,

²⁴ but also on ours, to whom it is about to be reckoned -- to us believing on Him who did raise up Jesus our Lord out of the dead,

²⁵ who was delivered up because of our offences, and was raised up because of our being declared righteous.

5 Having been declared righteous, then, by faith, we have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

² through whom also we have the access by the faith into this grace in which we have stood, and we boast on the hope of the glory of God.

³ And not only [so], but we also boast in the tribulations, knowing that the tribulation doth work endurance;

⁴ and the endurance, experience; and the experience, hope;

⁵ and the hope doth not make ashamed, because the love of God hath been poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit that hath been given to us.

⁶ For in our being still ailing, Christ in due time did die for the impious;

⁷ for scarcely for a righteous man will any one die, for for the good man perhaps some one also doth dare to die;

⁸ and God doth commend His own love to us, that, in our being still sinners, Christ did die for us;

⁹ much more, then, having been declared righteous now in his blood, we shall be saved through him from the wrath;

¹⁰ for if, being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved in his life.

¹¹ And not only [so], but we are also boasting in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we did receive the reconciliation;

¹² because of this, even as through one man the sin did enter into the world, and through the sin the death; and thus to all men the death did pass through, for that all did sin;

¹³ for till law sin was in the world: and sin is not reckoned when there is not law;

¹⁴ but the death did reign from Adam till Moses, even upon those not having sinned in the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a type of him who is coming.

¹⁵ But, not as the offence so also [is] the free gift; for if by the offence of the one the many did die, much more did the grace of God, and the free gift in grace of the one man Jesus Christ, abound to the many;

¹⁶ and not as through one who did sin [is] the free gift, for the judgment indeed [is] of one to condemnation, but the gift [is] of many offences to a declaration of `Righteous,'

¹⁷ for if by the offence of the one the death did reign through the one, much more those, who the abundance of the grace and of the free gift of the righteousness are receiving, in life shall reign through the one -- Jesus Christ.

¹⁸ So, then, as through one offence to all men [it is] to condemnation, so also through one declaration of `Righteous' [it is] to all men to justification of life;

¹⁹ for as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were constituted sinners: so also through the obedience of the one, shall the many be constituted righteous.

²⁰ And law came in, that the offence might abound, and where the sin did abound, the grace did overabound,

²¹ that even as the sin did reign in the death, so also the grace may reign, through righteousness, to life age-during, through Jesus Christ our Lord.