Why did God call Abraham?

¹Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Get out of your country, and from your relatives, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.

²I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing.

³I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you.”

⁴So Abram went, as Yahweh had spoken to him. Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran.

⁵Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls whom they had gotten in Haran, and they went to go into the land of Canaan. Into the land of Canaan they came.

⁶Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. The Canaanite was then in the land.

⁷Yahweh appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your seed.” He built an altar there to Yahweh, who appeared to him.

⁸He left from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to Yahweh and called on Yahweh’s name.

⁹Abram traveled, going on still toward the South.

¹After these things Yahweh’s word came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

²Abram said, “Lord Yahweh, what will you give me, since I go childless, and he who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?”

³Abram said, “Behold, to me you have given no seed: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir.”

⁴Behold, Yahweh’s word came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but he who will come out of your own body will be your heir.”

⁵Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So will your seed be.”

⁶He believed in Yahweh; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness.

⁷He said to him, “I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.”

⁸He said, “Lord Yahweh, how will I know that I will inherit it?”

⁹He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

¹⁰He brought him all of these, and divided them in the middle, and laid each half opposite the other; but he didn’t divide the birds.

¹¹The birds of prey came down on the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.

¹²When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Now terror and great darkness fell on him.

¹³He said to Abram, “Know for sure that your seed will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years.

¹⁴I will also judge that nation, whom they will serve. Afterward they will come out with great wealth,

¹⁵but you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried in a good old age.

¹⁶In the fourth generation they will come here again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.”

¹⁷It came to pass that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

¹⁸In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:

¹⁹the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,

²⁰the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,

²¹the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

¹What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh?

²For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God.

³For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

⁴Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed.

⁵But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

⁶Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works,

⁷“Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

⁸Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin.”

⁹Is this blessing then pronounced on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.

¹⁰How then was it counted? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

¹¹He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them.

¹²He is the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had in uncircumcision.

¹³For the promise to Abraham and to his seed that he should be heir of the world wasn’t through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

¹⁴For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect.

¹⁵For the law works wrath, for where there is no law, neither is there disobedience.

¹⁶For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

¹⁷As it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations.” This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were.

¹⁸Who in hope believed against hope, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your seed be.”

¹⁹Without being weakened in faith, he didn’t consider his own body, already having been worn out, (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

²⁰Yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn’t waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God,

²¹and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform.

²²Therefore it also was “reckoned to him for righteousness.”

²³Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone,

²⁴but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus, our Lord, from the dead,

²⁵who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.