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1-2O Israel, my Jewish family, I feel such great sorrow and heartache for you that never leaves me! God knows these deep feelings within me as I long for you to come to faith in the Anointed One. My conscience will not let me speak anything but the truth.[#9:1–2 Although implied here, Paul indeed calls them “my people” in v. 3.]
3-4For my grief is so intense that I wish that I would be accursed, cut off from the Messiah, if it would mean that you, my people, would come to faith in him!
You are Israelites, my fellow citizens, and God’s chosen people. To you belong God’s glorious presence, the covenants, the Torah, the temple with its required sacrifices, and the promises of God.
5We trace our beginnings back to the patriarchs, and through their bloodline is the genealogy of the Messiah, who is God over everything. May he be praised through endless ages! Amen!
6Clearly, God has not failed to fulfill his promises to Israel, for that will never happen! But not everyone who has descended from Israel belongs to Israel.
7Physical descent from Abraham doesn’t guarantee the inheritance, because God has said:
8This confirms that it is not merely the natural offspring of Abraham who are considered the children of God; rather, the children born because of God’s promise are counted as descendants.[#9:8 The Aramaic can be translated “the children of the kingdom.” By implication, it is those who can be traced back to a supernatural birth who are regarded as the children of God.]
9For God promised Abraham:
10Now, this son was our ancestor, Isaac, who, with his wife, Rebekah, conceived twins.
11-12And before her twin sons were born, God spoke to Rebekah and said:
God spoke these words before the sons had done anything good or bad, which proves that God calls people not on the basis of their good or bad works, but according to his divine purpose.
13For in the words of Scripture:
14So, what does all this mean? Are we saying that God is unfair? Of course not!
15He had every right to say to Moses:
16Again, this proves that God’s choice doesn’t depend on how badly someone wants it or tries to earn it, but it depends on God’s kindness and mercy.[#9:16 Or “not of the one willing nor of the one running.”]
17For just as God said to Pharaoh:
18So again we see that it is entirely up to God to show mercy or to harden the hearts of whomever he chooses.[#9:18 Although the Greek implies God hardens hearts, the Aramaic is more of a Hebrew idiom, “God gives permission for them to be hardened.” This implies the hardening the heart is from within the individual.]
19Well then, one might ask, “If God is in complete control, how could he blame us? For who can resist whatever he wants done?”
20But who do you think you are to second-guess God? How could a human being molded out of clay say to the one who molded him, “Why in the world did you make me this way?”[#9:20 By implication Paul is speaking of people who have been made from clay in the hands of the divine Potter. See Isa. 29:16; 45:9.]
21Or are you denying the right of the potter to make out of clay whatever he wants? Doesn’t the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay an elegant vase or an ordinary pot?
22And in the same way, although God has every right to unleash his anger and demonstrate his power, yet he is extremely patient with those who deserve wrath—vessels prepared for destruction.
23And doesn’t he also have the right to release the revelation of the wealth of his glory to his vessels of mercy, whom God prepared beforehand to receive his glory?[#9:23 Or “This he did to make known.” Although this sentence presents an anacoluthon and is missing the conditional clause, it is more likely that Paul is contrasting “the vessels prepared for destruction” with “the vessels of mercy.” Thus, “And doesn’t he also have the right?”]
24Even for us, whether we are Jews or non-Jews, we are those he has called to experience his glory.
25Remember the prophecy God gave in Hosea:
“To those who were rejected and not my people,
I will say to them: ‘You are mine.’
And to those who were unloved I will say:
‘You are my darling.’ ”
26And:
“In the place where they were told, ‘You are nobody,’
this will be the very place where they will be renamed
‘Children of the living God.’ ”
27And the prophet Isaiah cries out to Israel:
Though the children of Israel
are as many as the sands of the seashore,
only a remnant will be saved.
28For the Lord will act
and carry out his word on the earth,
and waste no time to accomplish it!
29Just as Isaiah saw it coming and prophesied:
If the Lord God had not left us a remnant,
we would have been destroyed like Sodom
and left desolate like Gomorrah!
30So then, what does all this mean? Here’s the irony : The non-Jewish people, who weren’t even pursuing righteousness, were the ones who seized it—a perfect righteousness that is transferred by faith.
31Yet Israel, even though pursuing a legal righteousness, did not attain to it.[#9:31 Or “a righteousness based on the law.”]
32And why was that? Because they did not pursue the path of faith but insisted on pursuing righteousness by works, as if it could be seized another way. They were offended by the means of obtaining it and stumbled over the stumbling stone,[#9:32 Or “works of the law.”]
33just as it is written:
“Be careful! I am setting in Zion a stone
that will cause people to stumble,
a rock of offense that will make them fall,
but believers in him will not experience shame.”