Romans 9
1 I speak the truth in Christ; I am not lying. My conscience bears witness with me in the Holy Spirit.
2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ, for the sake of my brothers and sisters, my relatives according to the flesh.
4 They are Israelites. To them belong adoption as children, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the worship, and the promises.
5 To them belong the fathers, and from them, according to the flesh, came the Christ, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen.
6 It is not as though God’s word has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
7 Nor are they all children just because they are Abraham’s descendants. Rather, “Through Isaac your offspring will be named.”
8 That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are God’s children, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
9 For this is the word of the promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.”
10 And that is not all. Rebecca also conceived children by one man, Isaac our father.
11 Before they had been born or had done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election might stand,
12 not because of works, but because of the one who calls, she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”
13 As it is written, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.”
14 What shall we say, then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!
15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will show compassion to whom I show compassion.”
16 So then, it does not depend on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God, who has mercy.
17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up: to show my power in you, and so that my name may be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.”
18 So then, he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills.
19 Then you will say to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will?”
20 But who are you, O human being, to answer back to God? Will what has been formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
21 Does the potter not have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show his wrath and make his power known, endured with great patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory to the vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory?
24 These are us, whom he called not only from among the Jews but also from among the nations.
25 As he also says in Hosea, “I will call those who were not my people ‘my people,’ and the one who was not loved ‘beloved.’”
26 “And it will happen that in the place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called children of the living God.”
27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the Israelites may be like the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved.
28 For the Lord will carry out his word on the earth, bringing it to completion and cutting it short.”
29 And as Isaiah said earlier, “If the Lord of Hosts had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.”
30 What shall we say, then? That the nations, though they were not pursuing righteousness, attained righteousness—the righteousness that comes from faith.
31 But Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not attain that law.
32 Why? Because they pursued it not by faith but as though by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,
33 as it is written: “Look, I am placing in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock that causes people to fall; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Read and listen to this chapter in the Shalem app, free: narration, chapter video and reading progress. Get the app