1 What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, has found? 2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he has reason to glory in himself, but not before God. 3 For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. 4 But unto him that works, the reward is not reckoned as grace, but as debt. 5 But to him that does not work, but believes in him that justifies the ungodly, the faith is counted as righteousness. 6 Even as David also describes the blessedness of the man unto whom God doth attribute righteousness without works,
7 saying, Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin.
9 Is this blessedness, therefore, only upon the circumcision or also upon the uncircumcision? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. 11 And he received the circumcision as a sign, as a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all the uncircumcised believers, that it might be counted unto them also as righteousness, 12 that he be the father of the circumcision: not only to those who are of the circumcision, but also unto those who walk in the steps of the faith that was in our father Abraham before he was circumcised.