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Romans 9
Holman Christian Standard Bible
Romans 9
Holman Christian Standard Bible
Israel’s Rejection of Christ
9 I speak the truth in Christ(A)—I am not lying; my conscience is testifying to me with the Holy Spirit[a]— 2 that I have intense sorrow and continual anguish in my heart. 3 For I could almost wish(B) to be cursed(C) and cut off[b] from the Messiah for the benefit of my brothers, my own flesh and blood. 4 They are Israelites,(D) and to them belong the adoption,(E) the glory,(F) the covenants,(G) the giving of the law,(H) the temple service,(I) and the promises.(J) 5 The ancestors are theirs,(K) and from them, by physical descent,[c] came the Messiah,(L) who is God(M) over all,(N) praised forever.[d](O) Amen.
God’s Gracious Election of Israel
6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed.(P) For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.(Q) 7 Neither are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants.[e](R) On the contrary, your offspring will be traced[f] through Isaac.(S)[g] 8 That is, it is not the children by physical descent[h] who are God’s children,(T) but the children of the promise(U) are considered to be the offspring. 9 For this is the statement of the promise: At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.(V)[i] 10 And not only that,(W) but also Rebekah received a promise when she became pregnant[j](X) by one man, our ancestor Isaac. 11 For though her sons had not been born yet or done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election might stand—(Y) 12 not from works but from the One who calls—she was told: The older will serve the younger.(Z)[k] 13 As it is written: I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.(AA)[l]
God’s Selection Is Just
14 What should we say then?(AB) Is there injustice with God?(AC) Absolutely not!(AD) 15 For He tells Moses:
I will show mercy
to whom I will show mercy,
and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion.(AE)[m]
16 So then it does not depend on human will or effort[n](AF) but on God who shows mercy.(AG) 17 For the Scripture tells Pharaoh:
I raised you up for this reason
so that I may display My power in you
and that My name may be proclaimed in all the earth.(AH)[o]
18 So then, He shows mercy to those He wants to, and He hardens those He wants to harden.(AI)
19 You will say to me,(AJ) therefore, “Why then does He still find fault?(AK) For who can resist His will?”(AL) 20 But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God?(AM) Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”(AN) 21 Or has the potter no right over the clay,(AO) to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor? 22 And what if God, desiring to display His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience(AP) objects of wrath ready for destruction?(AQ) 23 And what if He did this to make known the riches of His glory(AR) on objects of mercy(AS) that He prepared beforehand for glory(AT)— 24 on us, the ones He also called,(AU) not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?(AV) 25 As He also says in Hosea:
I will call Not My People, My People,
and she who is Unloved, Beloved.(AW)[p]
26 And it will be in the place where they were told,
you are not My people,
there they will be called sons of the living God.(AX)[q]
27 But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
Though the number of Israel’s sons
is like the sand of the sea,(AY)
only the remnant will be saved;(AZ)
28 for the Lord will execute His sentence
completely and decisively on the earth.[r](BA)[s]
29 And just as Isaiah predicted:
If the Lord of Hosts[t] had not left us offspring,(BB)
we would have become like Sodom,
and we would have been made like Gomorrah.(BC)[u]
Israel’s Present State
30 What should we say then?(BD) Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained righteousness—namely the righteousness that comes from faith.(BE) 31 But Israel, pursuing the law for righteousness,(BF) has not achieved the righteousness of the law.[v](BG) 32 Why is that? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works.[w] They stumbled over the stumbling stone.(BH) 33 As it is written:
Look! I am putting a stone in Zion to stumble over
and a rock to trip over,
yet the one who believes on Him(BI)
will not be put to shame.(BJ)[x]
Footnotes
- Romans 9:1 Or testifying with me by the Holy Spirit
- Romans 9:3 Lit were anathema
- Romans 9:5 Lit them, according to the flesh
- Romans 9:5 Or the Messiah, the One who is over all, the God who is blessed forever, or Messiah. God, who is over all, be blessed forever
- Romans 9:7 Lit seed
- Romans 9:7 Lit called
- Romans 9:7 Gn 21:12
- Romans 9:8 Lit children of the flesh
- Romans 9:9 Gn 18:10,14
- Romans 9:10 Or Rebekah conceived by the one act of sexual intercourse
- Romans 9:12 Gn 25:23
- Romans 9:13 Mal 1:2-3
- Romans 9:15 Ex 33:19
- Romans 9:16 Or on the one running; lit on the one willing
- Romans 9:17 Ex 9:16
- Romans 9:25 Hs 2:23
- Romans 9:26 Hs 1:10
- Romans 9:28 Or land
- Romans 9:28 Is 10:22-23; 28:22; Hs 1:10
- Romans 9:29 Gk Sabaoth; this word is a transliteration of the Hb word for Hosts, or Armies.
- Romans 9:29 Is 1:9
- Romans 9:31 Other mss read the law for righteousness
- Romans 9:32 Other mss add of the law
- Romans 9:33 Is 8:14; 28:16
Romans 9
Contemporary English Version
Romans 9
Contemporary English Version
God's Choice of Israel
9 I am a follower of Christ, and the Holy Spirit is a witness to my conscience. So I tell the truth and I am not lying when I say 2 my heart is broken and I am in great sorrow. 3 I would gladly be placed under God's curse and be separated from Christ for the good of my own people. 4 (A) They are the descendants of Israel, and they are also God's chosen people. God showed them his glory. He made agreements with them and gave them his Law. The temple is theirs and so are the promises that God made to them. 5 They have those famous ancestors, who were also the ancestors of the Christ.[a] I pray that God, who rules over all, will be praised forever![b] Amen.
6 It cannot be said that God broke his promise. After all, not all of the people of Israel are the true people of God. 7-8 (B) In fact, when God made the promise to Abraham, he meant only Abraham's descendants by his son Isaac. God was talking only about Isaac when he promised 9 (C) Sarah, “At this time next year I will return, and you will already have a son.”
10 Don't forget what happened to the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah. 11-12 (D) Even before they were born or had done anything good or bad, the Lord told Rebekah that her older son would serve the younger one. The Lord said this to show he makes his own choices and it wasn't because of anything either of them had done. 13 (E) That's why the Scriptures say that the Lord liked Jacob more than Esau.
14 Are we saying God is unfair? Certainly not! 15 (F) The Lord told Moses that he has pity and mercy on anyone he wants to. 16 Everything then depends on God's mercy and not on what people want or do. 17 (G) In the Scriptures the Lord says to the king of Egypt, “I let you become king, so that I could show you my power and be praised by all people on earth.” 18 Everything depends on what God decides to do, and he can either have pity on people or make them stubborn.
God's Anger and Mercy
19 Someone may ask, “How can God blame us, if he makes us behave in the way he wants us to?” 20 (H) But, my friend, I ask, “Who do you think you are to question God? Does the clay have the right to ask the potter why he shaped it the way he did? 21 (I) Doesn't a potter have the right to make a fancy bowl and a plain bowl out of the same lump of clay?”
22 (J) God wanted to show his anger and reveal his power against everyone who deserved to be destroyed. But instead, he patiently put up with them. 23 He did this by showing how glorious he is when he has pity on the people he has chosen to share in his glory. 24 Whether Jews or Gentiles, we are those chosen ones, 25 (K) just as the Lord says in the book of Hosea,
“Although they are not
my people,
I will make them my people.
I will treat with love
those nations
that have never been loved.
26 (L) “Once they were told,
‘You are not my people.’
But in that very place
they will be called
children of the living God.”
27 (M) And this is what the prophet Isaiah said about the people of Israel,
“The people of Israel
are as many
as the grains of sand
along the beach.
But only a few who are left
will be saved.
28 The Lord will be quick
and sure to do on earth
what he has warned
he will do.”
29 (N) Isaiah also said,
“If the Lord All-Powerful
had not spared some
of our descendants,
we would have been destroyed
like the cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah.”[c]
Israel and the Good News
30 What does all of this mean? It means that the Gentiles were not trying to be acceptable to God, but they found that he would accept them if they had faith. 31-32 It also means that the people of Israel were not acceptable to God. And why not? It was because they were trying[d] to be acceptable by obeying the Law instead of by having faith in God. The people of Israel fell over the stone that makes people stumble, 33 (O) just as God says in the Scriptures,
“Look! I am placing in Zion
a stone to make people
stumble and fall.
But those who have faith
in that one will never
be disappointed.”
Footnotes
- 9.5 Christ: Or “Messiah.”
- 9.5 Christ. I pray that God, who rules over all, will be praised forever: Or “Christ, who rules over all. I pray that God will be praised forever” or “Christ. And I pray that Christ, who is God and rules over all, will be praised forever.”
- 9.29 Sodom and Gomorrah: During the time of Abraham the Lord destroyed these two cities because their people were so sinful.
- 9.31,32 because they were trying: Or “while they were trying” or “even though they were trying.”
Romans 9
The Message
Romans 9
The Message
God Is Calling His People
9 1-5 At the same time, you need to know that I carry with me at all times a huge sorrow. It’s an enormous pain deep within me, and I’m never free of it. I’m not exaggerating—Christ and the Holy Spirit are my witnesses. It’s the Israelites . . . If there were any way I could be cursed by the Messiah so they could be blessed by him, I’d do it in a minute. They’re my family. I grew up with them. They had everything going for them—family, glory, covenants, revelation, worship, promises, to say nothing of being the race that produced the Messiah, the Christ, who is God over everything, always. Oh, yes!
6-9 Don’t suppose for a moment, though, that God’s Word has malfunctioned in some way or other. The problem goes back a long way. From the outset, not all Israelites of the flesh were Israelites of the spirit. It wasn’t Abraham’s sperm that gave identity here, but God’s promise. Remember how it was put: “Your family will be defined by Isaac”? That means that Israelite identity was never racially determined by sexual transmission, but it was God-determined by promise. Remember that promise, “When I come back next year at this time, Sarah will have a son”?
10-13 And that’s not the only time. To Rebecca, also, a promise was made that took priority over genetics. When she became pregnant by our one-of-a-kind ancestor, Isaac, and her babies were still innocent in the womb—incapable of good or bad—she received a special assurance from God. What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don’t do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative. God told Rebecca, “The firstborn of your twins will take second place.” Later that was turned into a stark epigram: “I loved Jacob; I hated Esau.”
14-18 Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please. God told Moses, “I’m in charge of mercy. I’m in charge of compassion.” Compassion doesn’t originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God’s mercy. The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, “I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power.” All we’re saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for better or worse.
19 Are you going to object, “So how can God blame us for anything since he’s in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?”
20-33 Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?” Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn’t that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people. Hosea put it well:
I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.
In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!”
they’re calling you “God’s living children.”
Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:
If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered
and the sum labeled “chosen of God,”
They’d be numbers still, not names;
salvation comes by personal selection.
God doesn’t count us; he calls us by name.
Arithmetic is not his focus.
Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth:
If our powerful God
had not provided us a legacy of living children,
We would have ended up like ghost towns,
like Sodom and Gomorrah.
How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:
Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
a stone you can’t get around.
But the stone is me! If you’re looking for me,
you’ll find me on the way, not in the way.
Romans 9
New International Version
Romans 9
New International Version
Paul’s Anguish Over Israel
9 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying,(A) my conscience confirms(B) it through the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself(C) were cursed(D) and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people,(E) those of my own race,(F) 4 the people of Israel.(G) Theirs is the adoption to sonship;(H) theirs the divine glory,(I) the covenants,(J) the receiving of the law,(K) the temple worship(L) and the promises.(M) 5 Theirs are the patriarchs,(N) and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah,(O) who is God over all,(P) forever praised Amen.
God’s Sovereign Choice
6 It is not as though God’s word(R) had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.(S) 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”[b](T) 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children,(U) but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.(V) 9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”[c](W)
10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac.(X) 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad(Y)—in order that God’s purpose(Z) in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”[d](AA) 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”[e](AB)
14 What then shall we say?(AC) Is God unjust? Not at all!(AD) 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”[f](AE)
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.(AF) 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”[g](AG) 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.(AH)
19 One of you will say to me:(AI) “Then why does God still blame us?(AJ) For who is able to resist his will?”(AK) 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?(AL) “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,(AM) ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[h](AN) 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?(AO)
22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience(AP) the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?(AQ) 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory(AR) known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory(AS)— 24 even us, whom he also called,(AT) not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?(AU) 25 As he says in Hosea:
“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”[i](AV)
26 and,
“In the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”[j](AW)
27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,(AX)
only the remnant will be saved.(AY)
28 For the Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”[k](AZ)
29 It is just as Isaiah said previously:
“Unless the Lord Almighty(BA)
had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.”[l](BB)
Israel’s Unbelief
30 What then shall we say?(BC) That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;(BD) 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness,(BE) have not attained their goal.(BF) 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.(BG) 33 As it is written:
Footnotes
- Romans 9:5 Or Messiah, who is over all. God be forever praised! Or Messiah. God who is over all be forever praised!
- Romans 9:7 Gen. 21:12
- Romans 9:9 Gen. 18:10,14
- Romans 9:12 Gen. 25:23
- Romans 9:13 Mal. 1:2,3
- Romans 9:15 Exodus 33:19
- Romans 9:17 Exodus 9:16
- Romans 9:20 Isaiah 29:16; 45:9
- Romans 9:25 Hosea 2:23
- Romans 9:26 Hosea 1:10
- Romans 9:28 Isaiah 10:22,23 (see Septuagint)
- Romans 9:29 Isaiah 1:9
- Romans 9:33 Isaiah 8:14; 28:16
Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville Tennessee. All rights reserved.
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The Message (MSG)
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