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9:1  I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by 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 accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own brothers and sisters, my own flesh and blood.
9:4  They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises;
9:5  to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
9:6  It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all those descended from Israel are Israelites,
9:7  and not all of Abraham’s children are his descendants, but “it is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.”
9:8  This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.
9:9  For the word of the promise is this: “About this time I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.”
9:10  Nor is that all; something similar happened to Rebecca when she had conceived children by one husband, our ancestor Isaac:
9:11  even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose of election might continue,
9:12  not by works but by his call) she was told, “The elder shall serve the younger.”
9:13  As it is written, “I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.”
9:14  What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!
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.”
9:16  So it depends not on human will or exertion but on God who shows mercy.
9:17  For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I may show my power in you and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”
9:18  So then he has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses.
9:19  You will say to me then, “Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”
9:20  But who indeed are you, a human, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, “Why have you made me like this?”
9:21  Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use?
9:22  What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction,
9:23  and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—
9:24  including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the gentiles?
9:25  As he also says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ”
9:26  “And in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they shall be called children of the living God.”
9:27  And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,
9:28  for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth quickly and decisively.”
9:29  And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left descendants to us, we would have fared like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.”
9:30  What then are we to say? Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith,
9:31  but Israel, who did strive for the law of righteousness, did not attain that law.
9:32  Why not? Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,
9:33  as it is written, “See, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall, and whoever trusts in him will not be put to shame.”