Chapter 9

  I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit,  

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  that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.  

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  For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers' sake, my relatives according to the flesh,  

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  who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises;  

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  whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen.  

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  But it is not as though the word of God has come to nothing. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel.  

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  Neither, because they are Abraham's seed, are they all children. But, 'In Isaac will your seed be called.'  

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  That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as a seed.  

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  For this is a word of promise, 'At the appointed time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.'  

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  Not only so, but Rebecca also conceived by one, by our father Isaac.  

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  For being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls,  

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  it was said to her, 'The elder will serve the younger.'  

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  Even as it is written, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'  

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  What will we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!  

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  For he said to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'  

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  So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy.  

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  For the scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth.'  

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  So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.  

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  You will say then to me, 'Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?'  

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  But no, man, who are you who replies against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'  

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  Or hasn't the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?  

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  What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction,  

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  and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,  

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

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  As he says also in Hosea, 'I will call them 'my people,' which were not my people; And her 'beloved,' who was not beloved.'  

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  'It will be that in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' There will they be called 'sons of the living God.''  

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  Isaiah cries concerning Israel, 'If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, It is the remnant who will be saved;  

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  For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, Because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.'  

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  As Isaiah has said before, 'Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a seed, We would have become like Sodom, And would have been made like Gomorrah.'  

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  What will we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn't follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith;  

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  but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn't arrive at the law of righteousness.  

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  Why? Because they didn't seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone;  

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  even as it is written, 'Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. And no one who believes in him will be put to shame.'  

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