God’s Election of Israel

9 I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit, ² that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race. ⁴ They are Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; ⁵ to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever.^[a] Amen.

⁶ But it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, ⁷ and not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants; but “Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.” ⁸ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants. ⁹ For this is what the promise said, “About this time I will return and Sarah shall have a son.” ¹⁰ And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, ¹¹ though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call, ¹² she was told, “The elder will serve the younger.” ¹³ As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

¹⁴ What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! ¹⁵ For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” ¹⁶ So it depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy. ¹⁷ For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” ¹⁸ So then he has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills.

God’s Wrath and Mercy

¹⁹ You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”^{[b] 20} But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me thus?” ²¹ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? ²² What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction, ²³ in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, ²⁴ even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

²⁵ As indeed he says in Hose′a,

²⁷ And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved; ²⁸ for the Lord will execute his sentence upon the earth with rigor and dispatch.” ²⁹ And as Isaiah predicted,

Israel’s Unbelief

³⁰ What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; ³¹ but that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on law did not succeed in fulfilling that law. ³² Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, ³³ as it is written,