| 1 | Truth I say in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing testimony with me in the Holy Spirit, |
| 2 | that I have great grief and unceasing pain in my heart -- |
| 3 | for I was wishing, I myself, to be anathema from the Christ -- for my brethren, my kindred, according to the flesh, |
| 4 | who are Israelites, whose [is] the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the lawgiving, and the service, and the promises, |
| 5 | whose [are] the fathers, and of whom [is] the Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed to the ages. Amen. |
| 6 | And it is not possible that the word of God hath failed; for not all who [are] of Israel are these Israel; |
| 7 | nor because they are seed of Abraham [are] all children, but -- `in Isaac shall a seed be called to thee;` |
| 8 | that is, the children of the flesh -- these [are] not children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for seed; |
| 9 | for the word of promise [is] this; `According to this time I will come, and there shall be to Sarah a son.` |
| 10 | And not only [so], but also Rebecca, having conceived by one -- Isaac our father -- |
| 11 | (for they being not yet born, neither having done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to choice, might remain; not of works, but of Him who is calling,) it was said to her -- |
| 12 | `The greater shall serve the less;` |
| 13 | according as it hath been written, `Jacob I did love, and Esau I did hate.` |
| 14 | What, then, shall we say? unrighteousness [is] with God? let it not be! |
| 15 | for to Moses He saith, `I will do kindness to whom I do kindness, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion;` |
| 16 | so, then -- not of him who is willing, nor of him who is running, but of God who is doing kindness: |
| 17 | for the Writing saith to Pharaoh -- `For this very thing I did raise thee up, that I might shew in thee My power, and that My name might be declared in all the land;` |
| 18 | so, then, to whom He willeth, He doth kindness, and to whom He willeth, He doth harden. |
| 19 | Thou wilt say, then, to me, `Why yet doth He find fault? for His counsel who hath resisted?` |
| 20 | nay, but, O man, who art thou that art answering again to God? shall the thing formed say to Him who did form [it], Why me didst thou make thus? |
| 21 | hath not the potter authority over the clay, out of the same lump to make the one vessel to honour, and the one to dishonour? |
| 22 | And if God, willing to shew the wrath and to make known His power, did endure, in much long suffering, vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, |
| 23 | and that He might make known the riches of His glory on vessels of kindness, that He before prepared for glory, whom also He did call -- us -- |
| 24 | not only out of Jews, but also out of nations, |
| 25 | as also in Hosea He saith, `I will call what [is] not My people -- My people; and her not beloved -- Beloved, |
| 26 | and it shall be -- in the place where it was said to them, Ye [are] not My people; there they shall be called sons of the living God.` |
| 27 | And Isaiah doth cry concerning Israel, `If the number of the sons of Israel may be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved; |
| 28 | for a matter He is finishing, and is cutting short in righteousness, because a matter cut short will the Lord do upon the land. |
| 29 | and according as Isaiah saith before, `Except the Lord of Sabaoth did leave to us a seed, as Sodom we had become, and as Gomorrah we had been made like.` |
| 30 | What, then, shall we say? that nations who are not pursuing righteousness did attain to righteousness, and righteousness that [is] of faith, |
| 31 | and Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, at a law of righteousness did not arrive; |
| 32 | wherefore? because -- not by faith, but as by works of law; for they did stumble at the stone of stumbling, |
| 33 | according as it hath been written, `Lo, I place in Sion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence; and every one who is believing thereon shall not be ashamed.` |
