¹ I tell the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit,

² that I have great heaviness and continual pain in my heart.

³ For I myself was wishing to be accursed from Christ for my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh,

⁴ who are Israelites; to whom belong the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and the promises;

⁵ whose are the fathers, and of whom is the Christ according to flesh, He being God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

⁶ Not however that the word of God has failed, for not all those of Israel are Israel;

⁷ nor because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children. But, "In Isaac shall your Seed be called."

⁸ That is, not the children of the flesh are children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for a seed.

⁹ For this is the word of promise: "At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son."

¹⁰ And not only this, but when Rebekah also had conceived by one, by our father Isaac

¹¹ (for the children had not yet been born, neither had done any good or evil; but that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who called,)

¹² it was said to her, "The elder shall serve the younger."

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

¹⁴ What shall we say then? Is there not unrighteousness with God? Let it not be!

¹⁵ For He said to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

¹⁶ So then it is not of the one willing, nor of the one running, but of God, the One showing mercy.

¹⁷ For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "Even for this same purpose I have raised you up, that I might show My power in you, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth."

¹⁸ Therefore He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will, He hardens.

¹⁹ You will then say to me, Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will?

²⁰ No, but, O man, who are you who replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him who formed it, Why have you made me this way?

²¹ Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor?

²² What if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction;

²³ and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He had before prepared to glory;

²⁴ whom He also called, not only us, of Jews, but also of the nations?

²⁵ As He also says in Hosea, "I will call those not My people, My people; and those not beloved, Beloved."

²⁶ And it shall be, in the place where it was said to them. "You are not My people; there they shall be called sons of the living God."

²⁷ Isaiah also cries concerning Israel, "Though the number of the sons of Israel is as the sands of the sea, a remnant shall be saved.

²⁸ For He is bringing the matter to an end, and cutting short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work on the earth."

²⁹ And as Isaiah said before, "Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we would have been as Sodom, and would have been like Gomorrah."

³⁰ What shall we say then? That the nations, who did not follow after righteousness have taken on righteousness, but a righteousness of faith.

³¹ But Israel, who followed after a law of righteousness did not arrive at a law of righteousness.

³² Why? Because it was not of faith, but as it were by the works of the Law. For they stumbled at that Stumbling-stone;

³³ as it is written, "Behold, I lay in Zion a Stumbling-stone and a Rock-of-offense, and everyone believing on Him shall not be put to shame."