Book of Common Prayer

¹⁹ You will say to me then, So why does he still blame us? For who can resist his will? ²⁰ But, O man, what are you to dispute with God? Shall the work say to the workman, Why have you made me this way? ²¹ Does the potter not have power over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? ²² Accordingly, God, intending to show his wrath and to make his power known, suffered with long patience the vessels of wrath fitted to damnation, ²³ in order to show the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had prepared for glory – ²⁴ that is to say, us, whom he called not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles.

²⁵ As he says in Hosea: I will call them my people who were not my people, and her beloved who was not beloved. ²⁶ And: It will come to pass in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, that there the children of the living God shall be called. ²⁷ But Isaiah cries concerning Israel: Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet shall but a remnant be saved. ²⁸ He carries out the word to the end, and makes it short in righteousness. For a short word will God make on earth. ²⁹ And as Isaiah said before: If the Lord of Sabaoth had not left us a seed, we would have been made as Sodom, and would have been likened to Gomorrah.

³⁰ What shall we say then? We say that the Gentiles, who did not follow righteousness, have found righteousness; I mean, the righteousness which comes of faith. ³¹ But Israel, who followed the law of righteousness, could not attain to the law of righteousness. ³² And why not? Because they sought it not by faith, but as if it were by the works of the law. For they have stumbled at the stumbling stone. ³³ As it is written: Behold, I put in Zion a stumbling stone, and a rock that will make men fall. But none who believe on him will be ashamed.

Christ makes the man who was born blind able to see.

9 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from his birth. ² And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin: this man, or his father and mother, that he was born blind? ³ Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned, nor yet his father and mother, but it is so that the works of God may be shown on him. ⁴ I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day. The night comes, when no man can work. ⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

⁶ As soon as he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, and rubbed the clay on the eyes of the blind man, ⁷ and said to him, Go and wash in the pool of Siloam (which, translated, means Sent). He went his way and washed, and came back seeing. ⁸ The neighbours and people that had seen him before, how he was a beggar, said, Is this not the man who sat and begged? ⁹ Some said, This is the man. Others said, He is like him. But he himself said, I am he.

¹⁰ They said to him, How were your eyes opened then? ¹¹ He answered and said, The man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes, and said to me, Go to the pool Siloam and wash. And I went and washed, and received my sight.

¹² They said to him, Where is he? He said, I do not know.

¹³ Then they brought to the Pharisees the man who a little before had been blind. ¹⁴ For it was the Sabbath day when Jesus had made the clay and opened his eyes. ¹⁵ Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said to them, He put clay upon my eyes, and I washed, and do see. ¹⁶ Then some of the Pharisees said, This man is not of God, because he does not keep the Sabbath day. Others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such miracles? And there was disagreement among them. ¹⁷ Then they spoke to the blind man again: What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes? And he said, He is a prophet.