Old/New Testament

11 So I ask, has God left his people? No, he has not! I myself am a Jew. I was born in Abraham's family. I belong to the tribe of Benjamin.

² God has not left his people whom he knew from the first. Do you not know what the holy writings say about the prophet Elijah? He talked to God against the people of Israel.

³ He said, `Lord, they have killed your prophets. They have pulled down your holy places. I am the only one that is left, and they are trying to kill me.'

⁴ But what did God answer him? He said, `I have seven thousand men who have not kneeled down to the idol god Baal.'

⁵ So now some are left because God was kind to them, and chose them.

⁶ But if it was a gift because he was kind to them, then it was no longer because of the things they did. Or else a gift would no longer be a gift.

⁷ So what does that mean? The Jews did not get what they tried to get. Only the people God chose got it. The hearts of the rest of the people became hard.

⁸ The holy writings say, `God made them dull with sleep. He gave them eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear. They have been like that until today.'

⁹ And David said long ago, `May the table where they eat be like a net and like a trap. May it make them fall down. May it punish them.

¹⁰ Make their eyes become blind so that they cannot see. Make their backs bent all the time.'

¹¹ So I ask, `Have their feet been caught so that they have really fallen down?' No. But because they began to fall, the people who are not Jews were told how to be saved. That would make the Jews jealous.

¹² The people who are not Jews have been richly blessed because the Jews failed. So it will be even better for them when the Jews no longer fail God.

¹³ Now I say this to you who are not Jews. I am an apostle to those who are not Jews, so I think highly of the work I have been sent to do.

¹⁴ I want the people of my own nation, the Jews, to be jealous. Then I may be able to save some of them.

¹⁵ God turned away from the Jews in order to bring the world back to himself. Then if that is true, when he takes the Jews back to himself, will not that be like making dead people live?

¹⁶ If the first piece of bread is holy, so is all the rest which came from the same bread mix. If the root of a tree is holy, the branches are holy also.

¹⁷ Maybe some of the tree's branches were broken off. And you, a branch from a wild olive tree, were made to grow on the tree among the branches. You then have the good water that comes from the root of the olive tree.

¹⁸ But do not think that you are better than the tree's own branches. If you do, remember it is not you that holds the root in place. But it is the root that holds you.