6It is not as
though God's word had failed. For not all who are
descended from Israel are Israel.
7Nor because
they are his descendants are they all Abraham's
children. On the contrary, "It is through Isaac that
your offspring will be reckoned."
8In 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.
9For this was
how the promise was stated: "At the appointed time I
will return, and Sarah will have a son."
10Not
only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same
father, our father Isaac.
11Yet,
before the twins were born or had done anything good or
bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand:
12not by
works but by him who calls—she was told, "The older
will serve the younger."
13Just as it
is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
14What
then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!
15For he says
to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will
have compassion on whom I have compassion."
16It does
not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on
God's mercy. 17For
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."
18Therefore
God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he
hardens whom he wants to harden.
19One of
you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us?
For who resists his will?"
20But 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?' " 21Does
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?
22What
if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power
known, bore with great patience the objects of his
wrath—prepared for destruction?
23What 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— 24even
us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also
from the Gentiles?
25As 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,"26and,
"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.' "
27Isaiah
cries out concerning Israel:
"Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand
by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
28For the
Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality."
29It 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."
Israel's Unbelief
30What then
shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue
righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is
by faith;
31but
Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not
attained it.
32Why
not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it
were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone."
33As 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.
