Chapter 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  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,  

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  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.  

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  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;  

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

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

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  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,  

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  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.  

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

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  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,  

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

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

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  wherefore also it was reckoned to him to righteousness.  

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

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  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,  

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

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