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1I don’t want any of you to think that I’m not concerned about the people of Israel. They’re my family, my own flesh and blood. (I’m not lying, I’m telling you the truth as one in Christ—my conscience and the Holy Spirit confirm it.)
2I’m very sad and I’m constantly distressed about them.
3I’m even willing to be cursed and separated from Christ if that would help them.
4They’ve been adopted as God’s children. God’s glory belongs to them, and so do the covenants. They received the law and they were taught to worship in the temple. They were given the promises,
5and the founders of our nation belong to them. The Messiah comes from their family line. He is God over all. May he be praised forever! Amen.
6But it’s not as if God’s word has failed. Not everyone in the family line of Israel really belongs to Israel.
7Not everyone in Abraham’s family line is his child. On the contrary, Scripture says, “Your family line will continue through Isaac.”
8In other words, God’s children aren’t all those who are physically descended from Abraham. Rather, they’re the children God promised to him. Those are the ones who are considered to be Abraham’s children.
9God put it this way to Abraham: “I will return at the appointed time and Sarah will have a son.”
10And that’s not all. Rebekah’s children were born at the same time, and they had the same father, Isaac.
11-12But even before her twins were born, before they’d done anything good or bad, Rebekah was told, “The older son will serve the younger one.” This shows that God’s purpose was based firmly on his own choice, not on anything the children did.
13As it is written, “I chose Jacob instead of Esau.”
14What should we say then? Is God unfair? Not at all!
15He said to Moses,
“I’ll show mercy to those I show mercy to,
and I’ll pity the ones I pity.”
16So it doesn’t depend on what people want or what they do. It depends on God’s mercy.
17In Scripture, God says to Pharaoh, “I had a special reason for making you king. I decided to use you to show my power so that my name would become known everywhere on earth.”
18So God does what he wants to do. He shows mercy to one person and makes another person stubborn.
19One of you will say to me, “Then why does God still blame us? Who can oppose what he wants to do?”
20But who are you, a mere human being, to talk back to God? “Can a clay pot say to the one who made it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ”
21Isn’t the potter free to make different kinds of pots out of the same lump of clay, some for special purposes and others for ordinary use?
22What if God had chosen to show his anger and demonstrate his power, but he was still very patient with the people who were prepared to be destroyed?
23What if he did this to show the riches of his glory to the people he had mercy on, the ones he’d prepared to receive his glory?
24We are those people. He has chosen us not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles. As
25God says in Hosea,
“I will call those who are not my people, ‘my people.’
I will call the one who is not my loved one, ‘my loved one.’ ”
26He also says,
“Where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ ”
27Isaiah cries out concerning Israel,
“The number of people from Israel may be like the sand by the sea,
but only a few of them will be saved.
28The Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth quickly, once and for all.”
29Just as Isaiah said earlier,
“If the Lord Almighty
hadn’t left us children and grandchildren,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.”
30What should we say then? The Gentiles did not look for a way to be right with God, but they found it by having faith.
31The people of Israel tried to become right with God by obeying the law, but that didn’t work.
32Why not? Because they tried to do it themselves, instead of relying on faith in God. They tripped over the stone that causes people to trip and fall.
33As it is written,
“Look! I’m laying a stone in Zion that will cause people to trip.
It’s a rock that will make them fall.
The one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”