 1 I speak the truth in Christ. I do not lie. My conscience is also bearing witness to me in the Holy Spirit 2 that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for the sake of my family+ and my relatives+ according to the flesh 4 who are Israelites to whom was given 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, as concerning the flesh, Christ who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. 6 Not as though the Word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are from Israel. 7 Nor are they, because they are from the seed of Abraham, all children. But in Isaac shall your seed be called. Genesis 21:12 8 That is to say: Those who are children of the flesh are not children of God. But the children of the promise are counted to be the seed. 9 For this was the word of promise: At this time I will come and Sarah will have a son. Genesis 17:21 10 Not only that, but Rebecca also conceived by one, by our father Isaac. 11 For the children not yet born nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election~ might stand, not of works, but of Him who calls, 12 it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger. Genesis 25:23 13 As it is written: Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. Malachi 1:2 14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? That cannot 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. Exodus 33:19 16 So then, it is not of him who wills or of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. Exodus 33:19 17 For the Scriptures said to Pharaoh: Even for this same purpose I have raised you up so that I might show my power in you and so that my name might be declared throughout all the Earth. Exodus 9:16 18 Therefore God has mercy on whomever He will have mercy and He also hardens whomever He will. 19 Then you will say to me: Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will? 20 Indeed+, people+, who are you to reply against God? Shall the thing formed say to the one who formed it: Why have you made me thus? 21 Does the potter not have authority+ over the clay, of 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 longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction? 23 Then He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy He prepared for glory, 24 even us, whom He has called, not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles? 25 As He also said in Hosea: I will call them my people who were not my people and call her beloved who was not beloved. Hosea 2:23 26 It shall come to pass that in the place where it was said to them: You are not my people, there they shall be called the children of the living God. Hosea 1:10 27 Isaiah also cried out concerning Israel: Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant will be saved. Isaiah 10:22 28 For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the Earth. Matthew 24:22 29 As Isaiah said before: Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have been like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah. Isaiah 1:9 30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who did not follow after righteousness, have attained righteousness, even the righteousness that is by faith, 31 but Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. 32 Why? Because it was not by faith but by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. Isaiah 8:14 33 As it is written: Behold I lay in Zion+ a stumbling stone and rock of offense. Whoever believes in Him will not be ashamed. Isaiah 28:16
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