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."