Romans 9

¹ I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit—

² 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 people, those of my own race,

⁴ the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.

⁵ Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

⁶ It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

⁷ Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."

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 regarded as Abraham's offspring.

⁹ For this was how the promise was stated: "At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son."

¹⁰ Not only that, but Rebekah's children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac.

¹¹ Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand:

¹² not by works but by him who calls—she was told, "The older will serve the younger."

¹³ Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

¹⁴ What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!

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

¹⁶ It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy.

¹⁷ For Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might 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 One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?"

²⁰ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'"

²¹ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

²² What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?

²³ What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—

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

²⁵ As he 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, "In the very 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 out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.

²⁸ For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality."

²⁹ It is just as Isaiah said previously: "Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah."

³⁰ What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;

³¹ but Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, has not attained their goal.

³² Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.

³³ As it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame."