9 I say the truth in Christ. I do not lie; my conscience bearing me witness in the holy Ghost,
2 so that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
3 For I could wish myself to be accursed, to be separated from Christ, for my brothers who are my kinsmen according to the flesh,
4 (who are the Israelites), to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory, and the Covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and the promises;
5 from whom are the Fathers, and from whom, concerning the flesh, Christ - Who is God over all, blessed forever – came. Amen.
6 Notwithstanding, it cannot be that the word of God should take no effect. For not all are Israel who are of Israel.
7 Nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham. But: “In Isaac shall your seed be called.”
8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh are not the children of God. But the children of the promise are counted as the seed.
9 For this is a word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son”;
10 and not only her, but Rebecca also, when she had conceived by one, even by our Father, Isaac.
11 For before the children were born - and when they had done neither good nor evil (so that the purpose of God might remain according to election; not by works, but by Him Who calls) -
12 it was said to her: “The Elder shall serve the younger.”
13 As it is written: “I have loved Jacob and have hated Esau.”
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Absolutely not!
15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy and will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”
16 So then it is not in him who wills, nor in him who runs, but in God, Who shows mercy.
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “For this same purpose I have raised you up, so that I might show My power in you; and that My Name might be declared throughout all the earth.”
18 Therefore, He has mercy on whom He will. And whom He will, He hardens.
19 You will then say to me: “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?”
20 But who are you, O man, to contradict God? Shall the thing formed say to Him Who formed it, “Why have you made me this way”?
21 Does not indeed the potter have authority over the clay to make, from the same lump, one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?
22 What if God – though willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known - endured with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 That in so doing, He might declare the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy, which He has prepared unto glory -
24 even we whom He has called - not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.
25 As He also says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘My people’ who were not my people; and her ‘Beloved’ who was not beloved.
26 “And it shall be in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people’. There they shall be called ‘The sons of the living God’.”
27 Also, Isaiah cries concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel were as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall 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 And as Isaiah said before: “Except that the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we had been made as Sodom, and had been like Gomorrah.”
30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who did not follow righteousness, have attained righteousness, even the righteousness that is by faith;
31 but Israel, which followed the Law of righteousness, could not attain the Law of righteousness.
32 Why? Because they did not not seek it by faith, but by the works of the Law. For they have stumbled at the stumbling stone.
33 As it is written: “Behold, I lay a stumbling stone in Zion; an ensnaring rock. And everyone who believes in Him, shall not be ashamed.”