God's Choice of Israel

1I am speaking the truth in Christ. My conscience confirms through the Holy Spirit that I am not lying when I say

2that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.

3For I could wish that I myself were accursed, cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

4They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises.

5To them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, came the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

6It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel,

7and not all of Abraham's children are his true descendants, but, “Through Isaac yoʋr descendants will be counted.”

8That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God; rather, the children of the promise are counted as descendants.

9For this is what God promised: “About this time next year I will come, and Sarah will have a son.”

10Not only that, but when Rebecca had conceived by one man, our father Isaac,

11though her sons were not yet born and had done nothing good or evil, in order for the purpose of God's choice to stand (not because of works but because of him who calls),

12she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”

13As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

14What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God? Certainly not!

15For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

16So then, it does not depend on human will or effort, but on God's mercy.

17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised yoʋ up for the very purpose of showing my power in yoʋ, so that my name might be declared in all the earth.”

18So then, God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

God's Wrath and Mercy

19Yoʋ will say to me then, “ ⁴⁰Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”

20On the contrary, O man, who are yoʋ to answer back to God? Shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why did yoʋ make me like this?”

21Does the potter not have a right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

22What if God, although willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath fitted for destruction,

23in order to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy that he has prepared in advance for glory,

24namely us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

25As he says in Hosea,
“Those who were ‘not my people’ I will call ‘my people,’
and those who were ‘not beloved’ I will call ‘beloved.’

26And in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”

27And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel,
“Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.

28For the Lord will ⁴¹settle the matter swiftly and justly;
his sentence will be executed upon the earth without delay.”

29And just as Isaiah foretold,
“If the Lord of hosts had not left us any descendants,
we would have been like Sodom
and become like Gomorrah.”

Israel's Unbelief

30What then shall we say? That Gentiles who were not pursuing righteousness have obtained righteousness, that is, the righteousness that is by faith.

31But Israel, although they pursued a law of righteousness, did not attain ⁴²a law of righteousness.

32Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works ⁴³of the law. They stumbled over the stone of stumbling,

33as it is written,
“Behold, I am placing in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,
yet ⁴⁴no one who believes in him will be put to shame.”