The Message Bible MSG
The Latin Vulgate VUL
1 So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things?
1
quid ergo dicemus invenisse Abraham patrem nostrum secundum carnem
2 If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story.
2
si enim Abraham ex operibus iustificatus est habet gloriam sed non apud Deum
3 What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own."
3
quid enim scriptura dicit credidit Abraham Deo et reputatum est illi ad iustitiam
4 If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift.
4
ei autem qui operatur merces non inputatur secundum gratiam sed secundum debitum
5 But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it - you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked - well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.
5
ei vero qui non operatur credenti autem in eum qui iustificat impium reputatur fides eius ad iustitiam
6 David confirms this way of looking at it, saying that the one who trusts God to do the putting-everything-right without insisting on having a say in it is one fortunate man:
6
sicut et David dicit beatitudinem hominis cui Deus accepto fert iustitiam sine operibus
7 Fortunate those whose crimes are carted off, whose sins are wiped clean from the slate.
7
beati quorum remissae sunt iniquitates et quorum tecta sunt peccata
8 Fortunate the person against whom the Lord does not keep score.
8
beatus vir cui non inputabit Dominus peccatum
9 Do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in the disciplines of God? We all agree, don't we, that it was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God?
9
beatitudo ergo haec in circumcisione an etiam in praeputio dicimus enim quia reputata est Abrahae fides ad iustitiam
10 Now think: Was that declaration made before or after he was marked by the covenant rite of circumcision? That's right, before he was marked.
10
quomodo ergo reputata est in circumcisione an in praeputio non in circumcisione sed in praeputio
11 That means that he underwent circumcision as evidence and confirmation of what God had done long before to bring him into this acceptable standing with himself, an act of God he had embraced with his whole life.
11
et signum accepit circumcisionis signaculum iustitiae fidei quae est in praeputio ut sit pater omnium credentium per praeputium ut reputetur et illis ad iustitiam
12 And it means further that Abraham is father of all people who embrace what God does for them while they are still on the "outs" with God, as yet unidentified as God's, in an "uncircumcised" condition. It is precisely these people in this condition who are called "set right by God and with God"! Abraham is also, of course, father of those who have undergone the religious rite of circumcision not just because of the ritual but because they were willing to live in the risky faith-embrace of God's action for them, the way Abraham lived long before he was marked by circumcision.
12
et sit pater circumcisionis non his tantum qui sunt ex circumcisione sed et his qui sectantur vestigia quae est in praeputio fidei patris nostri Abrahae
13 That famous promise God gave Abraham - that he and his children would possess the earth - was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God's decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed.
13
non enim per legem promissio Abrahae aut semini eius ut heres esset mundi sed per iustitiam fidei
14 If those who get what God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract! That's not a holy promise; that's a business deal.
14
si enim qui ex lege heredes sunt exinanita est fides abolita est promissio
15 A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to collect. But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise - and God's promise at that - you can't break it.
15
lex enim iram operatur ubi enim non est lex nec praevaricatio
16 This is why the fulfillment of God's promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God's promise arrives as pure gift. That's the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us all. He is not our racial father - that's reading the story backwards. He is our faith father.
16
ideo ex fide ut secundum gratiam ut firma sit promissio omni semini non ei qui ex lege est solum sed et ei qui ex fide est Abrahae qui est pater omnium nostrum
17 We call Abraham "father" not because he got God's attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn't that what we've always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, "I set you up as father of many peoples"? Abraham was first named "father" and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing.
17
sicut scriptum est quia patrem multarum gentium posui te ante Deum cui credidit qui vivificat mortuos et vocat quae non sunt tamquam ea quae sunt
18 When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, "You're going to have a big family, Abraham!"
18
qui contra spem in spem credidit ut fieret pater multarum gentium secundum quod dictum est sic erit semen tuum
19 Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up.
19
et non infirmatus fide consideravit corpus suum emortuum cum fere centum annorum esset et emortuam vulvam Sarrae
20 He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God,
20
in repromissione etiam Dei non haesitavit diffidentia sed confortatus est fide dans gloriam Deo
21 sure that God would make good on what he had said.
21
plenissime sciens quia quaecumque promisit potens est et facere
22 That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right."
22
ideo et reputatum est illi ad iustitiam
23 But it's not just Abraham;
23
non est autem scriptum tantum propter ipsum quia reputatum est illi
24 it's also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless.
24
sed et propter nos quibus reputabitur credentibus in eum qui suscitavit Iesum Dominum nostrum a mortuis
25 The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.
25
qui traditus est propter delicta nostra et resurrexit propter iustificationem nostram
The Latin Vulgate is in the public domain.