¹ I speak the truth in Christ: I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost:

² That I have great sadness and continual sorrow in my heart.

³ For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my brethren: who are my kinsmen according to the flesh:

⁴ Who are Israelites: to whom belongeth the adoption as of children and the glory and the testament and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises:

⁵ Whose are the fathers and of whom is Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen.

⁶ Not as though the word of God hath miscarried. For all are not Israelites that are of Israel.

⁷ Neither are all they that are the seed of Abraham, children: but in Isaac shall thy seed be called.

⁸ That is to say, not they that are the children of the flesh are the children of God: but they that are the children of the promise are accounted for the seed.

⁹ For this is the word of promise: According to this time will I come. And Sara shall have a son.

¹⁰ And not only she. But when Rebecca also had conceived at once of Isaac our father.

¹¹ For when the children were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God according to election might stand):

¹² Not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger.

¹³ As it is written: Jacob I have loved: but Esau I have hated.

¹⁴ What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? God forbid!

¹⁵ For he saith to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy.

¹⁶ So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

¹⁷ For the scripture saith to Pharao: To this purpose have I raised thee, that I may shew my power in thee and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.

¹⁸ Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will. And whom he will, he hardeneth.

¹⁹ Thou wilt say therefore to me: Why doth he then find fault? For who resisteth his will?

²⁰ O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus?

²¹ Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour?

²² What if God, willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction,

²³ That he might shew the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he hath prepared unto glory?

²⁴ Even us, whom also he hath called, not only of the Jews but also of the Gentiles.

²⁵ As in Osee he saith: I will call that which was not my people, my people; and her that was not beloved, beloved; and her that had not obtained mercy; one that hath obtained mercy.

²⁶ And it shalt be in the place where it was said unto them: you are not my people; there they shall be called the sons of the living God.

²⁷ And Isaias cried out concerning Israel: If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved.

²⁸ For he shall finish his word and cut it short in justice: because a short word shall the Lord make upon the earth.

²⁹ And Isaias foretold: Unless the Lord of Sabbath had left us a seed, we had been made as Sodom and we had been like unto Gomorrha.

³⁰ What then shall we say? That the Gentiles who followed not after justice have attained to justice, even the justice that is of faith.

³¹ But Israel, by following after the law of justice, is not come unto the law of justice.

³² Why so? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were of works. For they stumbled at the stumblingstone.

³³ As it is written: Behold I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and a rock of scandal. And whosoever believeth in him shall not be confounded.