| 1 | I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit, |
| 2 | that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. |
| 3 | For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers' sake, my relatives according to the flesh, |
| 4 | who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises; |
| 5 | of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen. |
| 6 | But it is not as though the word of God has come to nothing. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel. |
| 7 | Neither, because they are Abraham's seed, are they all children. But, "In Isaac will your seed be called." |
| 8 | That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as a seed. |
| 9 | For this is a word of promise, "At the appointed time I will come, and Sarah will have a son." |
| 10 | Not only so, but Rebecca also conceived by one, by our father Isaac. |
| 11 | For being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls, |
| 12 | it was said to her, "The elder will serve the younger." |
| 13 | Even as it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." |
| 14 | What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be! |
| 15 | For he said to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." |
| 16 | So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. |
| 17 | For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." |
| 18 | So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires. |
| 19 | You will say then to me, "Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?" |
| 20 | But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?" |
| 21 | Or hasn't the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? |
| 22 | What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction, |
| 23 | and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, |
| 24 | us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? |
| 25 | As he says also in Hosea, "I will call them 'my people,' which were not my people; and her 'beloved,' who was not beloved." |
| 26 | "It will be that in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' There they will be called 'children of the living God.'" |
| 27 | Isaiah cries concerning Israel, "If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant who will be saved; |
| 28 | for He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth." |
| 29 | As Isaiah has said before, "Unless the Lord of Armies had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah." |
| 30 | What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn't follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith; |
| 31 | but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn't arrive at the law of righteousness. |
| 32 | Why? Because they didn't seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone; |
| 33 | even as it is written, "Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed." |
