9 I say the truth in Christ. I do not lie; my conscience bearing me witness in the holy Ghost,

² so that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.

³ For I could wish myself to be accursed, to be separated from Christ, for my brothers who are my kinsmen according to the flesh,

⁴ (who are the Israelites), to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory, and the Covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and the promises;

⁵ from whom are the Fathers, and from whom, concerning the flesh, Christ - Who is God over all, blessed forever – came. Amen.

⁶ Notwithstanding, it cannot be that the word of God should take no effect. For not all are Israel who are of Israel.

⁷ Nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham. But: “In Isaac shall your seed be called.”

⁸ That is, those who are the children of the flesh are not the children of God. But the children of the promise are counted as the seed.

⁹ For this is a word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son”;

¹⁰ and not only her, but Rebecca also, when she had conceived by one, even by our Father, Isaac.

¹¹ For before the children were born - and when they had done neither good nor evil (so that the purpose of God might remain according to election; not by works, but by Him Who calls) -

¹² it was said to her: “The Elder shall serve the younger.”

¹³ As it is written: “I have loved Jacob and have hated Esau.”

¹⁴ What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Absolutely not!

¹⁵ For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy and will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”

¹⁶ So then it is not in him who wills, nor in him who runs, but in God, Who shows mercy.

¹⁷ For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “For this same purpose I have raised you up, so that I might show My power in you; and that My Name might be declared throughout all the earth.”

¹⁸ Therefore, He has mercy on whom He will. And whom He will, He hardens.

¹⁹ You will then say to me: “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?”

²⁰ But who are you, O man, to contradict God? Shall the thing formed say to Him Who formed it, “Why have you made me this way”?

²¹ Does not indeed the potter have authority over the clay to make, from the same lump, one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?

²² What if God – though willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known - endured with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

²³ That in so doing, He might declare the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy, which He has prepared unto glory -

²⁴ even we whom He has called - not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.

²⁵ As He also says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘My people’ who were not my people; and her ‘Beloved’ who was not beloved.

²⁶ “And it shall be in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people’. There they shall be called ‘The sons of the living God’.”

²⁷ Also, Isaiah cries concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel were as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved.

²⁸ “For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the Earth.”

²⁹ And as Isaiah said before: “Except that the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we had been made as Sodom, and had been like Gomorrah.”

³⁰ What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who did not follow righteousness, have attained righteousness, even the righteousness that is by faith;

³¹ but Israel, which followed the Law of righteousness, could not attain the Law of righteousness.

³² Why? Because they did not not seek it by faith, but by the works of the Law. For they have stumbled at the stumbling stone.

³³ As it is written: “Behold, I lay a stumbling stone in Zion; an ensnaring rock. And everyone who believes in Him, shall not be ashamed.”