You and your descendants must all agree to circumcise every male among you.

The blood on the doorposts will be a sign to mark the houses in which you live. When I see the blood, I will pass over you and will not harm you when I punish the Egyptians.

to tell the people of Israel, "Keep the Sabbath, my day of rest, because it is a sign between you and me for all time to come, to show that I, the LORD, have made you my own people.

It is a permanent sign between the people of Israel and me, because I, the LORD, made heaven and earth in six days, and on the seventh day I stopped working and rested."

I made the keeping of the Sabbath a sign of the agreement between us, to remind them that I, the LORD, make them holy.

Make the Sabbath a holy day, so that it will be a sign of the covenant we made, and will remind you that I am the LORD your God.

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.

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.

who has placed his mark of ownership upon us, and who has given us the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the guarantee of all that he has in store for us.

And you also became God's people when you heard the true message, the Good News that brought you salvation. You believed in Christ, and God put his stamp of ownership on you by giving you the Holy Spirit he had promised.

And do not make God's Holy Spirit sad; for the Spirit is God's mark of ownership on you, a guarantee that the Day will come when God will set you free.

They were told not to harm the grass or the trees or any other plant; they could harm only the people who did not have the mark of God's seal on their foreheads.

When God promised Abraham and his descendants that the world would belong to him, he did so, not because Abraham obeyed the Law, but because he believed and was accepted as righteous by God.

God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all:

So we say that the Gentiles, who were not trying to put themselves right with God, were put right with him through faith;

But what the scripture says about being put right with God through faith is this: "You are not to ask yourself, Who will go up into heaven?" (that is, to bring Christ down).

As for us, our hope is that God will put us right with him; and this is what we wait for by the power of God's Spirit working through our faith.

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.

It was faith that made Noah hear God's warnings about things in the future that he could not see. He obeyed God and built a boat in which he and his family were saved. As a result, the world was condemned, and Noah received from God the righteousness that comes by faith.

From Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ--- To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have been given a faith as precious as ours:

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;

Abraham believed and hoped, even when there was no reason for hoping, and so became "the father of many nations." Just as the scripture says, "Your descendants will be as many as the stars."

God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all:

(SEE 3:25)

I am not saying that the promise of God has failed; for not all the people of Israel are the people of God.

that the scripture speaks of: "Look, I place in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall. But whoever believes in him will not be disappointed."

For Christ has brought the Law to an end, so that everyone who believes is put right with God.

The scripture says, "Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed."

I assure you that many will come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of heaven.

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

Jesus said to him, "Salvation has come to this house today, for this man, also, is a descendant of Abraham.

so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not have life, but will remain under God's punishment.

"I am the bread of life," Jesus told them. "Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty.

For what my Father wants is that all who see the Son and believe in him should have eternal life. And I will raise them to life on the last day."

For what my Father wants is that all who see the Son and believe in him should have eternal life. And I will raise them to life on the last day."

I am telling you the truth: he who believes has eternal life.

whoever believes in me should drink. As the scripture says, 'Streams of life-giving water will pour out from his side.' "

Jesus said this about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were going to receive. At that time the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not been raised to glory.

"We are the descendants of Abraham," they answered, "and we have never been anybody's slaves. What do you mean, then, by saying, 'You will be free'?"

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die;

and those who live and believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

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

But the scripture says that the whole world is under the power of sin; and so the gift which is promised on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ is given to those who believe.

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

As for those who follow this rule in their lives, may peace and mercy be with them---with them and with all of God's people!