11
“By Faith”
1 Now, to have faith is to have a grounded conviction about things hoped for, to be firmly convinced of the certainty of events not seen.
2 Indeed, it was because of their faith that our ancestors received God’s approval.
3 By faith we understand that the ages were set in order by the command of God, so that it is not from anything visible that what we now see has come into existence.
4 By faith it was a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s that Abel offered to God. By his faith he was approved as righteous, God himself giving approval to the offerings he presented. And by his example of faith, even though he is dead, Abel still speaks.
5 By faith Enoch was “taken up,” so that he didn’t experience death; he “could not be found, because God had taken him up.”+ Before being “taken up,” you see, he had been approved as “well-pleasing to God.”+
6 Without faith, in other words, it is impossible to please God. The person who comes before God must have faith, you see, that he really is taking note, and that he will in fact show himself to be, for those who seek him out, a rewarder.
7 It was by faith that Noah, after receiving divine warning about what was going to happen, which he could not, as yet, see, in holy fear built an ark to save his household. By his faith he condemned the world and became, of the righteousness that comes by faith, an heir.
8 It was by faith that Abraham, when summoned to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he didn’t know where he was going.
9 By faith he lived in the land that God promised him as though he were a foreigner, dwelling there in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
10 He was waiting for that city, you see, with her permanent “foundation stones,”+ whose architect and builder is God.
11 By faith, even though Sarah herself could not have children, he received the ability, past the normal age though he was, to become a father, because he regarded the one who had made the promise as faithful.+
12 That is why from this one man, and him as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
13 It was in faith that each and every one of these people died, without having received the things that had been promised, but having seen and welcomed them from a distance, and having openly admitted that “strangers and resident foreigners”+ was what they were in the land.
14 Those who say these kinds of things, you see, make it clear that it is a homeland of their own on which they are setting their hearts.
15 Indeed if that land from which they had gone out were what they had had in mind, there was nothing to stop them from returning.
16 As things stand, however, it is a better homeland for which they are longing, that is, one from heaven. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, as shown by the fact that he has prepared a city for them.
17 It was by faith that Abraham offered up Isaac as a sacrifice when he was put to the test. It was none other than his matchless son whom he was about to offer up—this man to whom the very promises themselves had been given!—
18 concerning whom he had been told, “it is through Isaac that ˢyour seed will be designated,”+
19 having come to the conclusion that God was able to raise his son up from the very pit of death—from which Abraham did receive him back, too, as a parable foreshadowing things to come.
20 By faith it was in regard to things still future, likewise, that Isaac invoked God’s blessing upon Jacob and Esau.
21 By faith Jacob, when he was about to die, invoked God’s blessing on each of the sons of Joseph, and “worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.”+
22 By faith Joseph: As he neared the end of his life, it was the exodus still to be experienced by the people of Israel about which he confidently spoke, and the future transport of his bones concerning which he confidently gave instructions.
23 By faith, in the case of Moses: After he was born, he was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child had been chosen for something very special; and they were not afraid to disobey the king’s decree.
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, renounced his privileges as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,
25 choosing to suffer hardship with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures, so short-lived, of sin,
26 regarding the suffering of insult for the sake of the Messiah to be itself of far greater worth than the treasures of Egypt, because he kept his eyes fixed on the coming reward.
27 By faith he left Egypt without being afraid of the king’s rage, because it was the one who is unseen whom he kept continually before his eyes, as it were.
28 By faith he had the people observe the Passover and sprinkle the blood, so that the destroying angel would not kill the firstborn sons of the Israelites.
29 It was by faith that the Israelites crossed the Red Sea as if on dry ground; when the Egyptians made of the same waters an attempt, however, they were swallowed up.
30 By faith fell the walls of Jericho, after the people had marched around them for seven days.
31 By faith Rahab the prostitute escaped from being destroyed along with the disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace.
32 And what more should I say? There simply isn’t enough time for me to go into the lives of Gideon, Barak, Sampson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—
33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions,
34 quenched the blaze of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were turned from weak to strong, became mighty in battle, and put to flight whole foreign armies.
35 Women received back by means of resurrection their loved ones who had died. Others, however, were brutally tortured, refusing to forsake God in return for release, in the hope of sharing in an even better, indeed a lasting, resurrection.
36 In the case of some it was mocking and flogging by which they were tested, while for still others it was chains and imprisonment.
37 They were stoned to death, sawed in two, murdered with the sword; they went about clothed in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, cruelly treated,
38 wandering about and hiding in desolate places, and in mountains and caves and holes in the ground—people whom the world didn’t deserve to have living in it.
39 And yet not one of these people, although they received divine approval because of their faith, received what had been promised,
40 because God, with us in mind, had made preparations for something superior, lest it be without us that they be fully and finally consecrated for service as priests.