God’s Sovereign Choice

⁶ It is not as though God’s word^(A) had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.^{(B) 7} Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”^{[a](C) 8} In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children,^(D) but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.^{(E) 9} For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”^[b](F)

¹⁴ What then shall we say?^(A) Is God unjust? Not at all!^{(B) 15} For he says to Moses,

¹⁶ It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.^{(D) 17} For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”^{[b](E) 18} Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.^(F)

¹⁹ One of you will say to me:^(G) “Then why does God still blame us?^(H) For who is able to resist his will?”^{(I) 20} But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?^(J) “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,^(K) ‘Why did you make me like this?’”^{[c](L) 21} Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?^(M)

²² What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience^(N) the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?^{(O) 23} What if he did this to make the riches of his glory^(P) known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory^(Q)— ²⁴ even us, whom he also called,^(R) not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?^(S)

Israel’s Unbelief

³⁰ What then shall we say?^(A) That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;^{(B) 31} but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness,^(C) have not attained their goal.^{(D) 32} Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.^{(E) 33} As it is written: