Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham, because I am making you the ancestor of many nations.

"I will keep my promise to you and to your descendants in future generations as an everlasting covenant. I will be your God and the God of your descendants.

God said to Abraham, "You also must agree to keep the covenant with me, both you and your descendants in future generations.

From now on you must circumcise every baby boy when he is eight days old, including slaves born in your homes and slaves bought from foreigners. This will show that there is a covenant between you and me.

So then, from now on be obedient to the LORD and stop being stubborn.

The LORD your God will give you and your descendants obedient hearts, so that you will love him with all your heart, and you will continue to live in that land.

Keep your covenant with me, your LORD, and dedicate yourselves to me, you people of Judah and Jerusalem. If you don't, my anger will burn like fire because of the evil things you have done. It will burn, and there will be no one to put it out."

(SEE 9:25)

If you obey the Law, your circumcision is of value; but if you disobey the Law, you might as well never have been circumcised.

And so you Jews will be condemned by the Gentiles because you break the Law, even though you have it written down and are circumcised; but they obey the Law, even though they are not physically circumcised.

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 was circumcised later, and his circumcision was a sign to show that because of his faith God had accepted him as righteous before he had been circumcised. And so Abraham is the spiritual father of all who believe in God and are accepted as righteous by him, even though they are not circumcised.

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.

In union with Christ you were circumcised, not with the circumcision that is made by human beings, but with the circumcision made by Christ, which consists of being freed from the power of this sinful self.

People from one end of the world to the other honor me. Everywhere they burn incense to me and offer acceptable sacrifices. All of them honor me!

But the time is coming and is already here, when by the power of God's Spirit people will worship the Father as he really is, offering him the true worship that he wants.

God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is."

God is my witness that what I say is true---the God whom I serve with all my heart by preaching the Good News about his Son. God knows that I remember you

Now, however, we are free from the Law, because we died to that which once held us prisoners. No longer do we serve in the old way of a written law, but in the new way of the Spirit.

For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, "Father! my Father!"

In the same way the Spirit also comes to help us, weak as we are. For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express.

And God, who sees into our hearts, knows what the thought of the Spirit is; because the Spirit pleads with God on behalf of his people and in accordance with his will.

Do all this in prayer, asking for God's help. Pray on every occasion, as the Spirit leads. For this reason keep alert and never give up; pray always for all God's people.

But you, my friends, keep on building yourselves up on your most sacred faith. Pray in the power of the Holy Spirit,

But all those things that I might count as profit I now reckon as loss for Christ's sake.

and be completely united with him. I no longer have a righteousness of my own, the kind that is gained by obeying the Law. I now have the righteousness that is given through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is based on faith.

Be glad that we belong to him; let all who worship him rejoice.

I, the LORD, will rescue all the descendants of Jacob, and they will give me praise.

The LORD says, "The wise should not boast of their wisdom, nor the strong of their strength, nor the rich of their wealth.

If any want to boast, they should boast that they know and understand me, because my love is constant, and I do what is just and right. These are the things that please me. I, the LORD, have spoken."

This means that no one can boast in God's presence.

So then, as the scripture says, "Whoever wants to boast must boast of what the Lord has done."

Even those who practice circumcision do not obey the Law; they want you to be circumcised so that they can boast that you submitted to this physical ceremony.

As for me, however, I will boast only about the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; for by means of his cross the world is dead to me, and I am dead to the world.

I could, of course, put my trust in such things. If any of you think you can trust in external ceremonies, I have even more reason to feel that way.

and I was so zealous that I persecuted the church. As far as a person can be righteous by obeying the commands of the Law, I was without fault.

For through the living and eternal word of God you have been born again as the children of a parent who is immortal, not mortal.

but the word of the Lord remains forever." This word is the Good News that was proclaimed to you.