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The Letter to the Romans 9

9 I speak what is true as one whom God has united with the Messiah. I do not speak what is false. The Holy Spirit confirms what my conscience testifies within myself when I say 2 that I grieve very greatly and constantly! 3 I do so because I truly wish that God would curse me and completely alienate me from Jesus the Messiah for my fellow kinsmen to be saved! They are physically related to me. 4 These kinsmen of mine are the Israelites. They are those whom God spiritually adopted. God allowed them to experience how glorious he is. God made covenants with them. God gave them his laws. God gave them the way to worship him. God also made promises to them. 5 Our Jewish forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were Israelites. The Messiah is also one of them, as someone physically related to them. The Messiah rules over everything. He is the blessed God forever. May it be so!

6 Yet God has not failed to do what he promised to the Israelites. This is true because not all people who have physically descended from Israel are true Israelites. 7 It is also not true that all those who physically descended from Abraham are Abraham’s true offspring. Rather, as God says to Abraham in the Scriptures, “I will identify your true offspring through those who descend from Isaac.” 8 In other words, the people who only physically descended from Abraham are not God’s spiritual children. Rather, those who became God’s spiritual children as a result of what God promised are regarded as Abraham’s true spiritual offspring. 9 Indeed, this is what God promised would happen when he said in the Scriptures, “At a set time, I will come. As a result, Sarah will give birth to a son.” 10 This is not the only promise God made. But God made a promise also when Rebekah became pregnant by this same man, Isaac. He is the ancestor of us Israelites. 11 Indeed, God chose only one of her two sons even though she had not yet born them and they had not yet done anything right or wrong. God did this in order that what he had previously planned with regard to choosing people would happen. 12 God did not choose only one of her sons because of what he did. Rather, it was because God summons those whom he chooses. This is why God told Rebekah in the Scriptures, “Your older son will become a slave to your younger son.” 13 This is what God meant when he said in the Scriptures, “I love the younger son Jacob, but I emphatically reject the older son Esau.”

14 Someone might say, “If what you have said is true, then surely God must be unrighteous!” Then I would say, “Of course not!” 15 We know that God is truly righteous because God told Moses in the Scriptures, “I will be merciful to whomever I want to be merciful. I will be compassionate to whomever I want to be compassionate.” 16 Therefore, who receives God’s mercy does not depend on how much someone desires to receive it. Who receives God’s mercy also does not depend on how much effort someone exerts. Rather, it depends on what God wants. He is the one who is merciful. 17 Indeed, this is what God told Pharaoh in the Scriptures, “I allowed you to become king in Egypt for this exact reason: in order that I could use you to exhibit how powerful I am. I also allowed you to become king in order that I will be famous all over the world.” 18 Therefore, God is merciful to whomever he wants to be merciful. But he makes stubborn whomever he wants to become stubborn.

19 As a result of what I have said, one of you may tell me, “If what you have said is true, then surely God should not blame people for doing what they do! God should not do that because no one can ever stop him from doing whatever he wants to do!” 20 Then I would say, “You mere human! You who argue with God are truly not worthy to do so! Who God has made surely must not say to God who made him, ‘You should not have made me to be like this!’ ” 21 God can surely do whatever he wants to do with what he has made. In the same way, someone who makes containers can do whatever he wants to do with his materials. From the same material he can make both containers for special use and containers for ordinary use. 22 Now, you should surely not argue with God because he very patiently endured those people whom he would punish and had prepared to destroy eternally. He endured them because he wanted to show how angry he is and to reveal how powerful he is. 23 God also endures those whom he will punish in order to reveal how abundantly glorious he is to those people to whom he will be merciful. God has previously arranged to glorify these people eternally. 24 We are also among those people to whom God is merciful and whom God has summoned. God summons people from among Jewish people and even from among non-Jewish people. 25 In the same way, God also told Hosea in the Scriptures, “I will give the name ‘My people’ to people who were not my people. I will also give the name ‘Loved one’ to the person whom I did not love.”

26 God also told Hosea, “Then it will happen, in the exact same location where I previously told them, ‘You are not my people,’ I will give them the name, ‘Children of God who lives.’ ”

27 Indeed, elsewhere in the Scriptures Isaiah shouts out about the people of Israel, “Even though there were as many Israelites as there are grains of sand along the seashore, God will refrain from punishing only a few of them. 28 This is because the Lord will fully and swiftly accomplish what he promised to do on the earth.”

29 It is also just like Isaiah previously said in the Scriptures, “Unless the Lord, who rules over angel armies, had preserved offspring for us Israelites, he would have utterly destroyed us like he destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

30 Since these things are true, we should surely say that although the nations are not trying to be righteous, they became righteous. However, they became righteous by trusting God. 31 By contrast, the people of Israel tried to obey the laws God gave them in order to become righteous. But they could not become righteous by obeying those laws. 32 The reason why the people of Israel could not become righteous is that they did not try to become righteous by trusting God. Instead, they tried to become righteous by working for it. Because of this the Messiah offended them when he came. It is as if the Messiah is a stone that causes them to trip. 33 This is what God meant when he had Isaiah write in the Scriptures, “Pay attention! I am placing in Jerusalem someone who is like a stone that trips people and a rock that offends people. But God will not humiliate anyone who trusts in that person.”

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