11 I say, then, Did God cast away His people? let it not be! for I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin:

² God did not cast away His people whom He knew before; have ye not known -- in Elijah -- what the Writing saith? how he doth plead with God concerning Israel, saying,

³ `Lord, Thy prophets they did kill, and Thy altars they dug down, and I was left alone, and they seek my life;'

⁴ but what saith the divine answer to him? `I left to Myself seven thousand men, who did not bow a knee to Baal.'

⁵ So then also in the present time a remnant according to the choice of grace there hath been;

⁶ and if by grace, no more of works, otherwise the grace becometh no more grace; and if of works, it is no more grace, otherwise the work is no more work.

⁷ What then? What Israel doth seek after, this it did not obtain, and the chosen did obtain, and the rest were hardened,

⁸ according as it hath been written, `God gave to them a spirit of deep sleep, eyes not to see, and ears not to hear,' -- unto this very day,

⁹ and David saith, `Let their table become for a snare, and for a trap, and for a stumbling-block, and for a recompense to them;

¹⁰ let their eyes be darkened -- not to behold, and their back do Thou always bow down.'

¹¹ I say, then, Did they stumble that they might fall? let it not be! but by their fall the salvation [is] to the nations, to arouse them to jealousy;

¹² and if the fall of them [is] the riches of a world, and the diminution of them the riches of nations, how much more the fulness of them?

¹³ For to you I speak -- to the nations -- inasmuch as I am indeed an apostle of nations, my ministration I do glorify;

¹⁴ if by any means I shall arouse to jealousy mine own flesh, and shall save some of them,

¹⁵ for if the casting away of them [is] a reconciliation of the world, what the reception -- if not life out of the dead?

¹⁶ and if the first-fruit [is] holy, the lump also; and if the root [is] holy, the branches also.

¹⁷ And if certain of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wast graffed in among them, and a fellow-partaker of the root and of the fatness of the olive tree didst become --

¹⁸ do not boast against the branches; and if thou dost boast, thou dost not bear the root, but the root thee!