Romans 9
EasyEnglish Bible
The Jews have not believed in Christ
9 What I am telling you is true. I speak as someone who belongs to Christ. I am not telling lies. God's Holy Spirit rules my thoughts and I am sure that I am right. 2 I tell you this: Deep inside myself, I am always very sad and upset because of Israel's people. 3 I belong to the same family as they do. They are my own people. I really want them to believe in Christ too. If it would help them, I would even ask God to curse me. I would ask him to make me separate from Christ.
4 They are Israelite people. God chose them to belong to him as his own children. He showed them that he is very great. He made many agreements with them and he gave his Law to them. He showed them how they should worship him. He promised many good things to them. 5 It was their ancestors that God chose to make great many years ago.[a] And Christ himself, as a man, was born to an Israelite family. Christ is God, who rules over all things. We should praise him for ever! This is true! Amen.
6 God promised good things to Israel's people. But I am not saying that what God promised did not happen. It is clear that not all of Israel's people are God's true people. 7 Not all of them are true descendants of Abraham. God told Abraham, ‘It is only Isaac that I will call the father of your descendants.’
8 This means that not all of Abraham's children are really God's children. It is only those children who were born as a result of God's promise. Only they are the people that God calls true descendants. 9 This is what God promised to Abraham: ‘At this time next year I will come back. Then Sarah, your wife, will have a son.’[b]
10 Remember this too: Later, Isaac's wife, Rebekah, gave birth to twins. Those two sons had the same father, who was our ancestor, Isaac. 11 And God spoke to Rebekah before her sons were born. God spoke before the boys had done anything either good or bad. God did this to show clearly that he himself was choosing one child. He was not choosing someone because of what that person had done. He himself decided who he would choose. 12 God said to Rebekah, ‘The older son will serve the younger son.’ 13 This is written in the Bible: ‘I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.’[c]
14 Because of this, someone might say that God is not fair. No! We should never say that! 15 Think about this. God said to Moses, ‘I will be kind to whoever I choose to be kind to. I will feel sorry for whoever I choose to feel sorry for.’[d] 16 So then, it is God who decides these things. It is not because of what people want. It is not because of what people do. It is because God chooses to be kind.
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.’[e] 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.’ 20 But you are only human. You have no authority to speak against God like that. God has made you. A pot cannot speak against the person who made it! It cannot ask him, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ 21 Somebody who makes pots can choose to make any kind of pot. He can use the same piece of clay to make two different pots. One of the pots may be for special parties. The other pot is for dirty things.
22 What does that teach us about God? Some people are like pots that are ready for God to destroy. God is angry with people like that. He is ready to show his power against them. But he has chosen to wait patiently. He keeps his anger for later. 23 Other people are like valuable pots that God has chosen to make. God wants to be kind to people like that. He wants to use them to show people how great he is. He has prepared them to be with him for a special party in heaven. 24 We are those people! God has chosen us to be his people. It is not only Jews that he has chosen. He has also chosen Gentiles. 25 God says this in the book of Hosea:
‘I will say to people who were not my people,
“Now you are my people.”
I will say to people that I did not love,
“I love you.” ’[f]
26 ‘God had said to them,
“You are not my people.”
In the same place where he said that,
people will now call them “Children of God, who lives for ever.” ’[g]
27 Also, Isaiah, God's prophet, said this about Israel's people:
‘There are so many of Israel's people, nobody can count them.
They are as many as the bits of sand on the shore of the sea.
But God will save only a few of them.
28 The Lord God will finish his work quickly.
He has warned his people what he will do.
And he will punish them completely.’[h]
29 Isaiah had already said this:
‘The Lord of great power has let some of our children live.
If he had not done that, no descendants would remain.
We would have become like the people in Sodom and Gomorrah.’[i]
30 So, we must think about what all this means. The Gentiles were not trying to become right with God. But some of them have now become right with him. God has accepted them as right, because they have believed in Jesus Christ. 31 But Israel's people tried to find a law that would make them right with God. But they failed to become right with God. 32 They failed because they refused to believe in Christ. Instead, they were trying to do certain things so that God would accept them. Because of that they fell to the ground. Their feet hit the stone which causes people to fall. 33 It says this in the Bible:
‘Look, I am putting a special stone in Zion.
That stone will cause people to fall to the ground.
It is a rock that will make them fall down.
But anyone who believes in him will never be disappointed.’[j]
Footnotes
- 9:5 The ancestors of Israel's people were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. See Genesis 12—49.
- 9:9 See Genesis 17:21; 18:10,14.
- 9:13 See Malachi 1:2-3. Later, God gave Jacob the name ‘Israel’. Jacob was the ancestor of the Israelites.
- 9:15 See Exodus 33:19.
- 9:17 See Exodus 9:16.
- 9:25 See Hosea 2:23.
- 9:26 See Hosea 1:10.
- 9:28 See Isaiah 10:22-23.
- 9:29 See Isaiah 1:9 and Genesis 19:1-29. Sodom and Gomorrah were small towns. The people who lived there refused to obey God. So God destroyed those towns.
- 9:33 See Isaiah 28:16; 8:14 and 1 Peter 2:6-8. ‘Rock’ is one of God's names for Jesus. He is God's Messiah. It is difficult for people to believe that God will accept them only if they believe in Jesus Christ. They think that they can do good things and then he will accept them. This is why Jesus is like a rock that causes people to fall to the ground.
Romans 9
New King James Version
Israel’s Rejection of Christ
9 I (A)tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, 2 (B)that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. 3 For (C)I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my [a]countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, (D)to whom pertain the adoption, (E)the glory, (F)the covenants, (G)the giving of the law, (H)the service of God, and (I)the promises; 5 (J)of whom are the fathers and from (K)whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, (L)who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.
Israel’s Rejection and God’s Purpose(M)
6 (N)But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For (O)they are not all Israel who are of Israel, 7 (P)nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, (Q)“In Isaac your seed shall be called.” 8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but (R)the children of the promise are counted as the seed. 9 For this is the word of promise: (S)“At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.”
10 And not only this, but when (T)Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac 11 (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of (U)Him who calls), 12 it was said to her, (V)“The older shall serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, (W)“Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”
Israel’s Rejection and God’s Justice
14 What shall we say then? (X)Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, (Y)“I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For (Z)the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, (AA)“For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He (AB)hardens.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For (AC)who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? (AD)Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the (AE)potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make (AF)one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering (AG)the vessels of wrath (AH)prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known (AI)the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had (AJ)prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He (AK)called, (AL)not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
25 As He says also in Hosea:
(AM)“I will call them My people, who were not My people,
And her beloved, who was not beloved.”
26 “And(AN) it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them,
‘You are not My people,’
There they shall be called sons of the living God.”
27 Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel:
(AO)“Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea,
(AP)The remnant will be saved.
28 For [b]He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness,
(AQ)Because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth.”
29 And as Isaiah said before:
(AR)“Unless the Lord of [c]Sabaoth had left us a seed,
(AS)We would have become like Sodom,
And we would have been made like Gomorrah.”
Present Condition of Israel
30 What shall we say then? (AT)That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, (AU)even the righteousness of faith; 31 but Israel, (AV)pursuing the law of righteousness, (AW)has not attained to the law [d]of righteousness. 32 Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, [e]by the works of the law. For (AX)they stumbled at that stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:
(AY)“Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense,
And (AZ)whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
Footnotes
- Romans 9:3 Or relatives
- Romans 9:28 NU the Lord will finish the work and cut it short upon the earth
- Romans 9:29 Lit., in Heb., Hosts
- Romans 9:31 NU omits of righteousness
- Romans 9:32 NU by works, omitting of the law
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Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
