¹⁷ The Bible tells us what God said to Pharaoh: ‘This is why I caused you to be king of Egypt. My purpose was to show how powerful I am. As a result, people everywhere would know that I am great.’^{[a] 18} So we see this: God is kind to some people and he forgives them. But he causes some people, like Pharaoh, to turn against him. He chooses what he will do with each person.

God himself decides when he will be angry or kind

¹⁹ One of you may say to me, ‘God always does what he wants to do. Nobody can change what God makes them do. So God should not say that people have done wrong things.’