Romans 9

¹I speak truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit— ²that I have great grief and unceasing pain in my heart. ³For I could wish that I myself were anathema—accursed and cut off from Christ—on behalf of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. ⁴They are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption as heirs, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the sacred service, and the promises. ⁵To them belong the patriarchs, and from them comes the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

⁶But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are truly Israel. ⁷Nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s seed, but rather: “In Isaac your seed will be called.” ⁸This means it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as seed. ⁹For this is the word of the promise: “At this time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.” ¹⁰And not only that, but also when Rebecca had conceived by one man, our father Isaac— ¹¹though the children were not yet born and had done nothing good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election might stand, ¹²not based on works but on the one who calls—she was told: “The greater will serve the lesser.” ¹³Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

¹⁴What shall we say then? 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 the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God, who has mercy. ¹⁷For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “For this very purpose I raised you up, so that I might demonstrate my power in you, and so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” ¹⁸So then, he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills.

¹⁹You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who has resisted his purpose?” ²⁰But who are you, O human, to argue back against God? Will the molded thing say to the one who molded it, “Why did you make me like this?” ²¹Or does the potter not have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? ²²What if God, desiring to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with great patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³and did so to make known the wealth of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory— ²⁴even us, whom he called, not only from the Jews but also from the nations?

²⁵As he says also in Hosea: “I will call those who were not my people ‘My People,’ and her who was not loved ‘Beloved.’” ²⁶“And it shall be that 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: “Even if the number of the sons of Israel is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved; ²⁸for the Lord will carry out his word on the earth, finishing it and cutting it short.” ²⁹And as Isaiah predicted: “If the Lord of Sabaoth had not left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.”

³⁰What shall we say then? That nations who were not pursuing justice attained justice—that is, the justice that comes from trust. ³¹But Israel, pursuing a law of justice, did not reach that law. ³²Why? Because they did not seek it by trust, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, ³³just as it is written: “Behold, I am placing in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock that trips people up; and the one who trusts in him will not be put to shame.”