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Israel Is Not Cast Away

11 I say then, has God rejected and disowned His people? Certainly not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.(A) God has not rejected His [chosen] people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?(B) “Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left [of the prophets], and they are seeking my life.” But what is God’s response to him? “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”(C) So too then, at the present time there has come to be a remnant [a small believing minority] according to God’s gracious choice. But if it is by grace [God’s unmerited favor], it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace [it would not be a gift but a reward for works].

What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking [that is, God’s favor by obedience to the Law], but the elect [those chosen few] obtained it, while the rest of them became hardened and callously indifferent; just as it is written [in Scripture],

God gave them a spirit of stupor,
Eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear,
[a spiritual apathy that has continued] to this very day.”(D)

And David says,

Let their table (abundance) become a snare and a trap,
A stumbling block and a retribution to them.(E)
10 
Let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see,
And make their backs bend [under their burden] forever.”(F)

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