The privileges and tragedy of Israel

9 I’m speaking the truth in the Messiah, I’m not lying. I call my conscience as witness, in the holy spirit, ² that I have great sorrow and endless pain in my heart. ³ Left to my own self, I am half inclined to pray that I would be accursed, cut off from the Messiah, on behalf of my own family, my own flesh-and-blood relatives. ⁴ They are Israelites: the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises all belong to them. ⁵ The patriarchs are their ancestors; and it is from them, according to the flesh, that the Messiah has come—who is God over all, blessed forever, Amen!

Abraham’s two families

⁶ But it can’t be the case that God’s word has failed! Not all who are from Israel, you see, are in fact Israel. ⁷ Nor is it the case that all the children count as “seed of Abraham.” No: “in Isaac shall your seed be named.” ⁸ That means that it isn’t the flesh-and-blood children who are God’s children; rather, it is the children of the promise who will be calculated as “seed.” ⁹ This was what the promise said, you see: “Around this time I shall return, and Sarah shall have a son.”

¹⁰ And that’s not all. The same thing happened when Rebecca conceived children by one man, our ancestor Isaac. ¹¹ When they had not yet been born, and had done nothing either good or bad—so that what God had in mind in making his choice might come to pass, ¹² not because of works but because of the one who calls—it was said to her, “the elder shall serve the younger.” ¹³ As the Bible says, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.”

God’s purpose and justice

¹⁴ So what are we going to say? Is God unjust? Certainly not! ¹⁵ He says to Moses, you see, “I will have mercy on those on whom I will have mercy, and I will pity those I will pity.” ¹⁶ So, then, it doesn’t depend on human willing, or on human effort; it depends on God who shows mercy. ¹⁷ For the Bible says to Pharaoh: “This is why I have raised you up, to show my power in you, and so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” ¹⁸ So, then, he has mercy on the one he wants, and he hardens the one he wants.

¹⁹ You will say to me, then, “So why does he still blame people? Who can stand against his purpose?” ²⁰ Are you, a mere human being, going to answer God back? “Surely the clay won’t say to the potter, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” ²¹ Doesn’t the potter have authority over the clay, so that he can make from the same lump one vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? ²² Supposing God wanted to demonstrate his anger and make known his power, and for that reason put up very patiently with the vessels of anger created for destruction, ²³ in order to make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, the ones he prepared in advance for glory— ²⁴ including us, whom he called not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles?

God calls a remnant

²⁵ This is what he says in Hosea,

²⁷ Isaiah cries out, concerning Israel,

²⁹ As Isaiah said in an earlier passage,

Israel, the nations and the Messiah

³⁰ What then shall we say? That the nations, who were not aspiring towards covenant membership, have obtained covenant membership, but it is a covenant membership based on faith. ³¹ Israel meanwhile, though eager for the law which defined the covenant, did not attain to the law. ³² Why not? Because they did not pursue it on the basis of faith, but as though it was on the basis of works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, ³³ as the Bible says,