Paul’s Sorrow Over Israel

¹I tell the truth in Christ—I am not lying—my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit

²that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

³For I could wish that I myself were cursed, cut off from Christ for the sake of my siblings, my relatives according to the flesh

⁴who are Israelites. To them belongs the adoption as children, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises.

⁵Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them through the flesh is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

⁶But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all who are from Israel are truly Israel.

⁷Nor because they are Abraham’s offspring, are they all children. Rather “your offspring will be counted as from Isaac.”[#Genesis 21:12]

⁸That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise who are counted as heirs.

⁹For the wording of the promise is this: “At the appointed time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.”[#Genesis 18:10,14]

¹⁰Not only this, but Rebecca also conceived by one man, our father Isaac.

¹¹And even before they were born or had done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election would remain (not of works, but from the one who calls),

¹²she was told, “The elder will serve the younger.”[#Genesis 25:23]

¹³Even as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”[#Malachi 1:2-3]

¹⁴What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not!

¹⁵For ʜᴇ says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”[#Exodus 33:19]

¹⁶So then it does not depend on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who has mercy.

¹⁷For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very reason I raised you up, that I might display my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”[#Exodus 9:16]

¹⁸So then, ʜᴇ has mercy on whom ʜᴇ wants to, and ʜᴇ hardens whom ʜᴇ wants to.

¹⁹Then one of you will say to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”

²⁰But who are you, a human, to contradict God? Does something molded say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this?”[#Isaiah 29:16; 45:9]

²¹Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

²²What if God, willing to show ʜɪꜱ wrath and to make ʜɪꜱ power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

²³And ʜᴇ did this so that ʜᴇ might make known the riches of ʜɪꜱ glory on vessels of mercy, which ʜᴇ prepared beforehand for glory—

²⁴even us, whom ʜᴇ called, not only from the Jews, but also from the ethnic groups.

²⁵As he says also in Hosea,

“I will call those who were not my people, ‘my people’

and her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’”

²⁶“It will be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘Y’all are not my people,’

there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

²⁷Isaiah cries concerning Israel,

“Though the number of the children of Israel are like the sand of the sea,

only the remnant will be saved,

²⁸because the Lord will execute ʜɪꜱ word quickly and completely upon the earth.”[#Isaiah 10:22-23]

²⁹As Isaiah has said before,

“Unless the Lord of Armies had left us a seed,

we would have become like Sodom,

and would have been made to resemble Gomorrah.”

³⁰What should we say then? That the ethnic groups, who didn’t pursue righteousness, have taken hold of righteousness, a righteousness that is by faith,

³¹but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness did not attain it.

³²Why? Because they didn’t pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,

³³even as it is written,

“Look, I am setting a stumbling stone and a rock of offense in Zion,

and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.”