⁶ But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

¹⁰ I asked, ‘What am I to do, Lord?’ The Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go to Damascus; there you will be told everything that has been assigned to you to do.’^(A)

¹⁴ and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me^[a] with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.^{(A) 15} The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost.^{(B) 16} But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience as an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life.

¹⁶ But get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me^[a] and to those in which I will appear to you.^(A)

Shining as Lights in the World

¹² Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence but much more now in my absence, work on your own salvation with fear and trembling,^(A)

¹⁵ But when the one^[a] who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace was pleased^{(A) 16} to reveal his Son to me,^[b] so that I might proclaim him among the gentiles, I did not confer with any human,^(B)

²⁰ Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,

³ Not knowing the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness.^(A)

¹⁵ For he says to Moses,

¹⁶ So it depends not on human will or exertion but on God who shows mercy. ¹⁷ For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I may show my power in you and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”^{(B) 18} So then he has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses.

God’s Wrath and Mercy

¹⁹ You will say to me then, “Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”^{(C) 20} But who indeed are you, a human, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, “Why have you made me like this?”^{(D) 21} Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use?^{(E) 22} What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction,^{(F) 23} and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— ²⁴ including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the gentiles?