9:1 I speak the truth in Christ I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit
9:2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
9:3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race,
9:4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.
9:5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, for ever praised! [Or Christ, who is over all. God be for ever praised! Or Christ. God who is over all be for ever praised!] Amen.
9:6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
9:7 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. [Gen. 21:12]
9:8 In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.
9:9 For this was how the promise was stated: At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son. [Gen. 18:10,14]
9:10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac.
9:11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad in order that God’s purpose in election might stand:
9:12 not by works but by him who calls she was told, The older will serve the younger. [Gen. 25:23]
9:13 Just as it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. [Mal. 1:2,3]
9:14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!
9:15 For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. [Exodus 33:19]
9:16 It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
9:17 For the 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. [Exodus 9:16]
9:18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
9:19 One of you will say to me: Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?
9:20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, `Why did you make me like this?’ [Isaiah 29:16 45:9]
9:21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
9:22 What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath prepared for destruction?
9:23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory
9:24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
9:25 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, [Hosea 2:23]
9:26 and, It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, `You are not my people,’ they will be called `sons of the living God’. [Hosea 1:10]
9:27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.
9:28 For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality. [Isaiah 10:22,23]
9:29 It is just as Isaiah said previously: Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah. [Isaiah 1:9]
9:30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith
9:31 but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.
9:32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling-stone.
9:33 As it is written: See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame. [Isaiah 8:14 28:16]