Romans 10:14-11:12

Contemporary English Version

¹⁴How can people have faith in the Lord and ask him to save them, if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear, unless someone tells them? ¹⁵^(A) And how can anyone tell them without being sent by the Lord? The Scriptures say it is a beautiful sight to see even the feet of someone coming to preach the good news. ¹⁶^(B) Yet not everyone has believed the message. For example, the prophet Isaiah asked, “Lord, has anyone believed what we said?”

¹⁷No one can have faith without hearing the message about Christ. ¹⁸^(C) But am I saying that the people of Israel did not hear? No, I am not! The Scriptures say,

“The message was told
everywhere on earth.
It was announced
all over the world.”

¹⁹^(D) Did the people of Israel understand or not? Moses answered this question when he told that the Lord had said,

“I will make Israel jealous
    of people
who are a nation
    of nobodies.
I will make them angry
    with people
who don't understand
    a thing.”

²⁰^(E) Isaiah was fearless enough to tell that the Lord had said,

“I was found by people
who were not looking
for me.
I appeared to the ones
who were not asking
about me.”

²¹^(F) And Isaiah said about the people of Israel,

“All day long the Lord
has reached out
to people who are stubborn
and refuse to obey.”

God Has Not Rejected His People

11 ^(G) Am I saying that God has turned his back on his people? Certainly not! I am one of the people of Israel, and I myself am a descendant of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin. ²God did not turn his back on his chosen people. Don't you remember reading in the Scriptures how Elijah complained to God about the people of Israel? ³^(H) He said, “Lord, they killed your prophets and destroyed your altars. I am the only one left, and now they want to kill me.”

⁴^(I) But the Lord told Elijah, “I still have 7,000 followers who have not worshiped Baal.” ⁵It is the same way now. God treated the people of Israel with undeserved grace, and so a few of them are still his followers. ⁶This happened because of God's undeserved kindness and not because of anything they have done. It could not have happened except for God's gift of undeserved grace.

⁷This means that only a chosen few of the people of Israel found what all of them were searching for. And the rest of them were stubborn, ⁸^(J) just as the Scriptures say,

“God made them so stupid
that their eyes are blind,
and their ears
are still deaf.”

⁹^(K) Then David said,

“Turn their meals
    into bait for a trap,
so that they will stumble
and be given
    what they deserve.
¹⁰Blindfold their eyes!
    Don't let them see.
Bend their backs
beneath a burden
    that will never be lifted.”

Gentiles Will Be Saved

¹¹Do I mean that the people of Israel fell, never to get up again? Certainly not! Their failure made it possible for the Gentiles to be saved, and this will make the people of Israel jealous. ¹²But if the rest of the world's people were helped so much by their sin and loss, they will be helped even more by their full return.