Romans 9

¹I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit, ²that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race. ⁴They are Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; ⁵to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever. Amen.

⁶But it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, ⁷and not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants; but “Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.” ⁸This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants. ⁹For this is what the promise said, “About this time I will return and Sarah shall have a son.” ¹⁰And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, ¹¹though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call, ¹²she was told, “The elder will serve the younger.” ¹³As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

¹⁴What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 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 it depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy. ¹⁷For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” ¹⁸So then he has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills.

¹⁹You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” ²⁰But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me thus?” ²¹Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? ²²What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction, ²³in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, ²⁴even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? ²⁵As indeed he says in Hoseʹa,

“Those who were not my people

I will call ‘my people,’

and her who was not beloved

I will call ‘my beloved.’ ”

²⁶“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’

they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”

²⁷And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved; ²⁸for the Lord will execute his sentence upon the earth with rigor and dispatch.” ²⁹And as Isaiah predicted,

“If the Lord of hosts had not left us children,

we would have fared like Sodom and been made like Gomorʹrah.”

³⁰What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; ³¹but that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on law did not succeed in fulfilling that law. ³²Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, ³³as it is written,

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make men stumble,

a rock that will make them fall;

and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.”