The Call of Abram

12 The Lord said to Abram:

⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.^{(G) 5} He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, ⁶ Abram passed through the land to the site of Shechem,^(H) at the oak of Moreh. (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.) ⁷ The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring^[c](I) I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.

¹¹ “My name will be great among the nations,^(A) from the rising of the sun to its setting. Incense^[a] and pure offerings will be presented in my name in every place because my name will be great among the nations,”^[b] says the Lord of Armies.

²⁴ He replied, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”^(A)

³⁶ So the Jews said, “See how he loved^(A) him!”

Paul Answers an Objection

3 So what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? ² Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted^(A) with the very words of God.^(B)

⁴ They are Israelites,^(A) and to them belong the adoption,^(B) the glory,^(C) the covenants,^(D) the giving of the law,^(E) the temple service,^(F) and the promises.^{(G) 5} The ancestors are theirs,^(H) and from them, by physical descent,^[a] came the Christ,^(I) who is God^(J) over all,^(K) praised forever.^[b](L) Amen.

⁸ For I say that Christ became a servant of the circumcised^[a] on behalf of God’s truth,^(A) to confirm the promises to the fathers,^{(B) 9} and so that Gentiles^(C) may glorify God for his mercy.^(D) As it is written,