I know you are Abraham's descendants. Yet you are trying to kill me, because you will not accept my teaching.

And don't think you can escape punishment by saying that Abraham is your ancestor. I tell you that God can take these rocks and make descendants for Abraham!

so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil.

After all, who is a real Jew, truly circumcised? It is not the man who is a Jew on the outside, whose circumcision is a physical thing.

Rather, the real Jew is the person who is a Jew on the inside, that is, whose heart has been circumcised, and this is the work of God's Spirit, not of the written Law. Such a person receives praise from God, not from human beings.

He is also the father of those who are circumcised, that is, of those who, in addition to being circumcised, also live the same life of faith that our father Abraham lived before he was circumcised.

And so the promise was based on faith, in order that the promise should be guaranteed as God's free gift to all of Abraham's descendants---not just to those who obey the Law, but also to those who believe as Abraham did. For Abraham is the spiritual father of us all;

Nor are all of Abraham's descendants the children of God. God said to Abraham, "It is through Isaac that you will have the descendants I promised you."

You should realize, then, that the real descendants of Abraham are the people who have faith.

If you belong to Christ, then you are the descendants of Abraham and will receive what God has promised.

Can't you see? His faith and his actions worked together; his faith was made perfect through his actions.

You see, then, that it is by our actions that we are put right with God, and not by our faith alone.