Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

The Creator Is Making Known His Wrath And His Mercy In Humankind

¹⁹ Therefore you will say to me, “Why then does He still find-fault? For who has resisted^[a] His will?” ²⁰ O human, on the contrary, who are you, the one answering-back to God? The thing formed will not say to the one having formed it, “Why did you make me like-this?”, will it? ²¹ Or does not the potter have authority over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? ²² But what if God, wanting^[b] to demonstrate His wrath and to make-known His power, bore^[c] with much patience vessels of wrath having been prepared^[d] for destruction, ²³ and did so in order that He might make-known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy which He prepared-beforehand^[e] for glory— ²⁴ even us whom He called not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles?

He Is Making Those Not His People His Own Children

²⁵ As^[f] He says also in Hosea: “I will call ‘Not My people’, ‘My people’; and ‘Not having been loved’, ‘Having been loved’” [Hos 2:23]. ²⁶ “And it shall be in the place where it was said to them ‘you are not My people’, there they will be called sons of the living God” [Hos 1:10].

But Only a Remnant of Israel Will Be Saved

²⁷ But^[g] Isaiah cries-out concerning Israel: “If the number of the sons of Israel should be like the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. ²⁸ For the Lord will accomplish^[h] His word upon the earth, completing^[i] and cutting-short^[j]” [in Isa 10:22-23]. ²⁹ And just as Isaiah said-before [in Isa 1:9]: “Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left-behind a seed for us, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been likened^[k] as Gomorrah”.