- I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit,
- that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.
- For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers’ sake, my relatives according to the flesh,
- who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises;
- of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen.
- But it is not as though the word of God has come to nothing. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel.
- Neither, because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all children. But, “In Isaac will your seed be called.”[1]
- 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.
- For this is a word of promise, “At the appointed time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.”[2]
- Not only so, but Rebecca also conceived by one, by our father Isaac.
- 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,[3]
- it was said to her, “The elder will serve the younger.”[4]
- Even as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”[5]
- What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be!
- For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”[6]
- So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy.
- 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 proclaimed in all the earth.”[7]
- So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.
- You will say then to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?”
- But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”[8]
- 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?
- What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction,
- and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,
- us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?
- As he says also in Hosea,
“I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.”[9] - “It will be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
There they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”[10] - 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; - for He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness,
because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.”[11] - As Isaiah has said before,
“Unless the Lord of Armies[12] had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah.”[13] - What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn’t follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith;
- but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn’t arrive at the law of righteousness.
- Why? Because they didn’t seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone;
- even as it is written,
“Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.”[14]
- Genesis 21:12
- Genesis 18:10,14
- NA puts the phrase “not of works, but of him who calls” at the beginning of verse 12 instead of the end of verse 11.
- Genesis 25:23
- Malachi 1:2-3
- Exodus 33:19
- Exodus 9:16
- Isaiah 29:16; 45:9
- Hosea 2:23
- Hosea 1:10
- Isaiah 10:22-23
- Greek: Sabaoth (for Hebrew: Tze’va’ot)
- Isaiah 1:9
- Isaiah 8:14; 28:16