The LORD brought him outside, and said, *Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.* He said to Avram, *So shall your seed be.*
God said to Avraham, *Don't let it be grievous in your sight because of the boy, and because of your handmaid. In all that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice. For from Yitzchak will your seed be called.
The scepter will not depart from Yehudah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs. To him will the obedience of the peoples be.
You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Avraham, 'In your seed will all the families of the earth be blessed.'
For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Avraham, who is the father of us all.
What then is the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise has been made. It was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator.
The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Good News beforehand to Avraham, saying, *In you all the nations will be blessed.*
and not holding firmly to the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God's growth.