Romans 4 - Plain English Version(PEV)

(The next part, 4:1-12, mainly talks to Jewish people, so we have not translated it yet.)Abraham believed God

13Remember that story about Abraham, that old man that lived a long time ago. God promised him that one day the people born into his family would be great people everywhere in the world. And Abraham believed that word that God promised him. Abraham didn’t have the law at that time. He just believed God, and then God said that Abraham was good, and God promised to look after his family.

15People try to follow that law, but they can’t do it, and whenever they break that law, God gets angry with them and punishes them. So all the law does is give us trouble. (The only way people will not break the law is if there is no law to break.)

16So it is important that we trust God, just like Abraham trusted God. It doesn’t matter if we are Jewish or not Jewish. If we believe God, like Abraham did, we belong to his family, like he is our grand-father.

18Everyone reckoned that Abraham was too old to have any kids, but he believed that God was going to make him the father of lots of nations. God promised Abraham that later on lots of people were going to be born into his family and they were going to be a real big mob.

23That’s in God’s book. God told his men to write it there, but they didn’t write it just for Abraham.

24They wrote it for us too, so we can be sure about this. If we really trust God, he will also tell us, “You are properly good.” You know, our leader Jesus died, but after that God made him alive again.

25It was us who did bad things, but God let people kill Jesus instead of us. He took the payback for those bad things we did. Then God made him alive again, so now God tells us, “You are all right.”