¹ I 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 Heaven’s Armies had not left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have resembled Gomorrah.” 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 stumbleand a rock that will make them fall, yet the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.”