Israel’s Rejection Considered

1I am telling the truth in Christ (I am not lying!), for my conscience assures me in the Holy Spirit – 2I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were accursed – cut off from Christ – for the sake of my people, my fellow countrymen, 4who are Israelites. To them belong the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises. 5To them belong the patriarchs, and from them, by human descent, came the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever! Amen.

6It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all those who are descended from Israel are truly Israel, 7nor are all the children Abraham’s true descendants; rather “through Isaac will your descendants be counted.” 8This means it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God; rather, the children of promise are counted as descendants. 9For this is what the promise declared: “About a year from now I will return and Sarah will have a son.” 10Not only that, but when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our ancestor Isaac – 11even before they were born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose in election would stand, not by works but by his calling) – 12 it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger,” 13just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

14What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not! 15For he says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16So then, it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. 17For the scripture says to Pharaoh: “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may demonstrate my power in you, and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18So then, God has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden.

19You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who has ever resisted his will?” 20But who indeed are you – a mere human being – to talk back to God? Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use? 22But what if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction? 23And what if he is willing to make known the wealth of his glory on the objects of mercy that he has prepared beforehand for glory – 24even us, whom he has called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 25As he also says in Hosea:

“I will call those who were not my people, ‘My people,’ and I will call her who was unloved, ‘My beloved.’”

26“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’

there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”

27And Isaiah cries out on behalf of Israel, “Though the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved, 28for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth completely and quickly.” 29Just as Isaiah predicted,

“If the Lord of armies had not left us descendants,

we would have become like Sodom,

and we would have resembled Gomorrah.”

Israel’s Rejection Culpable

30What shall we say then? – that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness obtained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith, 31but Israel even though pursuing a law of righteousness did not attain it. 32Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but (as if it were possible) by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, 33just as it is written,

“Look, I am laying in Zion a stone that will cause people to stumble

and a rock that will make them fall,

yet the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.”