¹ Truth I say in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing testimony with me in the Holy Spirit,

² that I have great grief and unceasing pain in my heart--

³ for I was wishing, I myself, to be anathema from the Christ--for my brethren, my kindred, according to the flesh,

⁴ who are Israelites, whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the lawgiving, and the service, and the promises,

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

⁶ And it is not possible that the word of God hath failed; for not all who are of Israel are these Israel;

⁷ nor because they are seed of Abraham are all children, but--`in Isaac shall a seed be called to thee;'

⁸ that is, the children of the flesh--these are not children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for seed;

⁹ for the word of promise is this; `According to this time I will come, and there shall be to Sarah a son.'

¹⁰ And not only so , but also Rebecca, having conceived by one--Isaac our father--

¹¹ (for they being not yet born, neither having done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to choice, might remain; not of works, but of Him who is calling,) it was said to her--

¹² `The greater shall serve the less;'

¹³ according as it hath been written, `Jacob I did love, and Esau I did hate.'

¹⁴ What, then, shall we say? unrighteousness is with God? let it not be!

¹⁵ for to Moses He saith, `I will do kindness to whom I do kindness, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion;'

¹⁶ so, then--not of him who is willing, nor of him who is running, but of God who is doing kindness:

¹⁷ for the Writing saith to Pharaoh--`For this very thing I did raise thee up, that I might shew in thee My power, and that My name might be declared in all the land;'

¹⁸ so, then, to whom He willeth, He doth kindness, and to whom He willeth, He doth harden.

¹⁹ Thou wilt say, then, to me, `Why yet doth He find fault? for His counsel who hath resisted?'

²⁰ nay, but, O man, who art thou that art answering again to God? shall the thing formed say to Him who did form it , Why me didst thou make thus?

²¹ hath not the potter authority over the clay, out of the same lump to make the one vessel to honour, and the one to dishonour?

²² And if God, willing to shew the wrath and to make known His power, did endure, in much long suffering, vessels of wrath fitted for destruction,

²³ and that He might make known the riches of His glory on vessels of kindness, that He before prepared for glory, whom also He did call--us--

²⁴ not only out of Jews, but also out of nations,

²⁵ as also in Hosea He saith, `I will call what is not My people--My people; and her not beloved--Beloved,

²⁶ and it shall be--in the place where it was said to them, Ye are not My people; there they shall be called sons of the living God.'

²⁷ And Isaiah doth cry concerning Israel, `If the number of the sons of Israel may be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved;

²⁸ for a matter He is finishing, and is cutting short in righteousness, because a matter cut short will the Lord do upon the land.

²⁹ and according as Isaiah saith before, `Except the Lord of Sabaoth did leave to us a seed, as Sodom we had become, and as Gomorrah we had been made like.'

³⁰ What, then, shall we say? that nations who are not pursuing righteousness did attain to righteousness, and righteousness that is of faith,

³¹ and Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, at a law of righteousness did not arrive;

³² wherefore? because--not by faith, but as by works of law; for they did stumble at the stone of stumbling,

³³ according as it hath been written, `Lo, I place in Sion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence; and every one who is believing thereon shall not be ashamed.'