Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹⁴ He says to Moses, `I will be kind to a person if I choose to be kind to him. I will share in the suffering of others if I choose to be sorry for them.'

¹⁵ God is not kind to a person because the person wants God to be kind to him. God is not kind to him because the person runs to him to ask him for help. God is kind because he chooses to be kind.

¹⁶ In the holy writings it says to Pharaoh, `That is why I made you live. I wanted to show my power through you. I wanted people to know about me all over the earth.'

¹⁷ So God is kind to any person if he wants to be kind to him. And God makes a man's heart hard if he wants to do that.

¹⁸ So you will ask me, `Why does God still blame us? Who can fight against what God has planned?'

¹⁹ But you are only a man. Will you tell God what to do? Can the pot say to the man who made it, `Why did you make me like this?'

²⁰ The person who makes pots has power over the mud. He can make two different pots out of one pile of mud. One pot will be fine and another will not be fine. Can the potter not make them so?

²¹ God has a right to be very angry if he wants to be. He has the right to show his power. God was very angry with some people who deserved to die. And yet he waited a long time before he did anything to them.

²² He did it to show how very great he is. He was kind to some people. He planned for them to be made great.

²³ That means he also called us. He called not only those who are Jews, but also those who are not Jews.

²⁴ In the book written long ago by the prophet Hosea, God says `They were not my people. But I will call them "my people". I did not love her, but I will call her "the one I love."

²⁵ And in the very place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," they will be called "sons of the living God." '

²⁶ Isaiah the prophet of God said long ago about Israel, `Even if the people of Israel are as many as the sand by the sea, only some of them will be saved.

²⁷ The Lord will do what he said he will do on the earth. He will do it all and do it soon.'

²⁸ And Isaiah also said, `The Lord who has power, left some of our children. If he had not, we would have been like Sodom. We would have been destroyed like Gomorrah.'

²⁹ So what shall we say? The people who are not Jews have been put right with God. They did nothing to make themselves right with God. But they were put right because they believed God.