Paul’s Concern for the Jews

1I am speaking a truth in Christ?I am not lying, my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit? 2that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart 3(for I was wishing myself to be a curse from Christ) for my brethren, my kinsmen according to flesh; 4who, indeed, are Israelites, whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service, and the promises; 5whose are the fathers; and of whom, according to flesh, is the Christ, Who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

God’s Sovereign Choice

6But it is not as though the word of God has failed: for they are not all Israel, who are of Israel; 7neither, because they are Abraham's seed, are they all children; but, "In Isaac shall your seed be called." 8That is, the children of the flesh are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed. 9For the word of the promise is this: "At this season I will come, and Sarah shall have a son." 10And not only so; but Rebecca also having conceived by one, even by our father Isaac 11(for, the children being not yet born, nor having done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him Who calleth), 12it was said to her, "The elder shall serve the younger." 13Even as it has been written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

14What, then, shall we say? Is there unrighteousness with God? It could not be! 15For He saith to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomsoever I have mercy; and I will have compassion on whomsoever I have compassion." 16So, then, it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God Who hath mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose did I raise you up, that I might show forth My power in you, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth." 18So, then, He hath mercy on whom He willeth, and whom He willeth He hardeneth.

19You will say to me, then, "Why doth He still find fault? for who has withstood His will?" 20Nay but, O man, who are you that reply against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him Who formed it, "Why didst Thou make me thus?" 21Or has not the potter a right over the clay, out of the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? 22And what if God, willing to show forth His wrath and to make known His power, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction; 23and that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, 24whom He also called, not from Jews only, but also from gentiles?

25As He saith in Hosea, "I will call that My people, which was not My people; and her, 'Beloved,' who was not beloved.

26And it shall be that in the place where it was said, 'Ye are not My people,' there shall they be called sons of the living God."

27And Isaiah cries concerning Israel, "If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved;" 28for the Lord will do a work on the earth, finishing it, and cutting it short.

29And, as Isaiah has said before: "Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become as Sodom, and been made like to Gomorrah."

Israel’s Unbelief

30What, then, shall we say? that gentiles who were not following after righteous obtained righteousness, but a righteousness which is of faith; 31but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, did not attain to such a law. 32Wherefore? because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by works. They stumbled at the Stone of stumbling;

33as it has been written, "Behold, I lay in Zion a Stone of stumbling, and a Rock of offense; and he that believes on Him shall not be put to shame."