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speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my countrymen of my own race. 4 They are the people of Israel, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Christ, who is God over all, and eternally blessed. Amen.
6 But it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor are they his descendants because they are all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your descendants shall be called.” 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are considered as descendants. 9 For this is how the promise was stated: “About this time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”
10 Not only that, but when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac 11 (though before the twins had yet been born, or done anything good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might stand, 12 not of works but from Him who calls) she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written: “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”
14 What then should we say? Is God unjust? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”
16 So then it does not depend on human will or effort, but on God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I have raised you up for this very purpose, so that I may display My power in you, and that My name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore, God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.
19 You will say to me then, “Why then does God still find fault? For who can resist His will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Or does the potter have no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump of clay one piece of pottery for honour and another for common use?
22 What if God, desiring to display His wrath and to make His power known, endured with great patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 What if He did this to make known the riches of His glory to the objects of His mercy, whom He prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us, whom He also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 25 As He also says in Hosea:
“I will call them ‘My people’ who are not My people;
and I will call her ‘My loved one’ who is not My loved one,”
26 and,
“It will happen that in the very place where they were told,
‘You are not My people’,
there they will be called ‘sons of the living God’.”
27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the sons of Israel is like the sand of the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
28 For the Lord will carry out
His sentence on the earth quickly and decisively.”
29 It is just as Isaiah predicted:
“If the Lord of Hosts
had not left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
and we would have been made like Gomorrah.”
30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained righteousness, that is, the righteousness that comes through faith; 31 but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, did not succeed in fulfilling that law. 32 Why not? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over that stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:
“Behold, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble,
and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who believes on Him will not be put to shame.”