9Romans 9

God and His People

1I am speaking the truth; I belong to Christ and I do not lie. My conscience, ruled by the Holy Spirit, also assures me that I am not lyingSelect Romans 9:1

2when I say how great is my sorrow, how endless the pain in my heartSelect Romans 9:2

3for my people, my own flesh and blood! For their sake I could wish that I myself were under God's curse and separated from Christ.Select Romans 9:3

4They are God's people; he made them his children and revealed his glory to them; he made his covenants with them and gave them the Law; they have the true worship; they have received God's promises;Select Romans 9:4

5they are descended from the famous Hebrew ancestors; and Christ, as a human being, belongs to their race. May God, who rules over all, be praised forever! Amen.Select Romans 9:5

6I am not saying that the promise of God has failed; for not all the people of Israel are the people of God.Select Romans 9:6

7Nor are all of Abraham's descendants the children of God. God said to Abraham, “It is through Isaac that you will have the descendants I promised you.”Select Romans 9:7

8This means that the children born in the usual way are not the children of God; instead, the children born as a result of God's promise are regarded as the true descendants.Select Romans 9:8

9For God's promise was made in these words: “At the right time I will come back, and Sarah will have a son.”Select Romans 9:9

10And this is not all. For Rebecca's two sons had the same father, our ancestor Isaac.Select Romans 9:10

12But in order that the choice of one son might be completely the result of God's own purpose, God said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” He said this before they were born, before they had done anything either good or bad; so God's choice was based on his call, and not on anything they had done.Select Romans 9:12

13As the scripture says, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.”Select Romans 9:13

14Shall we say, then, that God is unjust? Not at all.Select Romans 9:14

15For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on anyone I wish; I will take pity on anyone I wish.”Select Romans 9:15

16So then, everything depends, not on what we humans want or do, but only on God's mercy.Select Romans 9:16

17For the scripture says to the king of Egypt, “I made you king in order to use you to show my power and to spread my fame over the whole world.”Select Romans 9:17

18So then, God has mercy on anyone he wishes, and he makes stubborn anyone he wishes.Select Romans 9:18

God's Anger and Mercy

19But one of you will say to me, “If this is so, how can God find fault with anyone? Who can resist God's will?”Select Romans 9:19

20But who are you, my friend, to talk back to God? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, “Why did you make me like this?”Select Romans 9:20

21After all, the man who makes the pots has the right to use the clay as he wishes, and to make two pots from the same lump of clay, one for special occasions and the other for ordinary use.Select Romans 9:21

22And the same is true of what God has done. He wanted to show his anger and to make his power known. But he was very patient in enduring those who were the objects of his anger, who were doomed to destruction.Select Romans 9:22

23And he also wanted to reveal his abundant glory, which was poured out on us who are the objects of his mercy, those of us whom he has prepared to receive his glory.Select Romans 9:23

24For we are the people he called, not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles.Select Romans 9:24

25This is what he says in the book of Hosea: “The people who were not mine I will call ‘My People.’ The nation that I did not love I will call ‘My Beloved.’Select Romans 9:25

26And in the very place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called the children of the living God.”Select Romans 9:26

27And Isaiah exclaims about Israel: “Even if the people of Israel are as many as the grains of sand by the sea, yet only a few of them will be saved;Select Romans 9:27

28for the Lord will quickly settle his full account with the world.”Select Romans 9:28

29It is as Isaiah had said before, “If the Lord Almighty had not left us some descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.”Select Romans 9:29

Israel and the Gospel

30So we say that the Gentiles, who were not trying to put themselves right with God, were put right with him through faith;Select Romans 9:30

31while God's people, who were seeking a law that would put them right with God, did not find it.Select Romans 9:31

32And why not? Because they did not depend on faith but on what they did. And so they stumbled over the “stumbling stone”Select Romans 9:32

33that the scripture speaks of: “Look, I place in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall. But whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.”Select Romans 9:33