Romans - Chapter 9 | English Standard Version

  • 1. I am speaking the truth in Christ--I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit--
  • 2. that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
  • 3. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
  • 4. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
  • 5. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
  • 6. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,
  • 7. and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named."
  • 8. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
  • 9. For this is what the promise said: "About this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son."
  • 10. And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac,
  • 11. though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad--in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call--
  • 12. she was told, "The older will serve the younger."
  • 13. As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
  • 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 have compassion on whom I have compassion."
  • 16. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
  • 17. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."
  • 18. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
  • 19. You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?"
  • 20. But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?"
  • 21. Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?
  • 22. What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
  • 23. in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory--
  • 24. even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
  • 25. As indeed he says in Hosea, "Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,' and her who was not beloved I will call 'beloved.'"
  • 26. "And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called 'sons of the living God.'"
  • 27. And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,
  • 28. for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay."
  • 29. And as Isaiah predicted, "If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah."
  • 30. What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith;
  • 31. but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.
  • 32. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,
  • 33. as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."
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