1I say the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit, 2that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers' sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 4who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service [of God], and the promises; 5whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh. May God, who is over all, be blessed forever. Amen. 6But [it is] not as though the word of God has come to nothing. For they are not all Israel, who are of Israel: 7neither, because they are Abraham's seed, are they all children: but, In Isaac will your seed be called. 8That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed. 9For this is a word of promise, According to this season I will come, and Sarah will have a son. 10And not only so; but Rebecca also having conceived by one, [even] by our father Isaac-- 11for [the children] not being yet born, neither having participated in anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stay, 12not of works, but of him who calls, it was said to her, The elder will serve as a slave to the younger. 13According to as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. 14What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. 15For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. 16So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth. 18So then he has mercy on whom he wants, and he hardens whom he wants. 19You will say then to me, Why then does he still find fault? For who withstands his will? 20On the contrary, O man, who are you that reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why did you make me thus? 21Or has not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel to honor, and another to shame? 22What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 23and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared in advance to glory, 24[even] us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? 25As he says also in Hosea, I will call that my people, which was not my people; And her beloved, that was not beloved. 26And it will be, [that] in the place where it was said to them, You{+} are not my people, There they will be called sons of the living God. 27And Isaiah cries concerning Israel, If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved: 28for the Lord will execute [his] word on the earth, finishing it and cutting it short. 29And, as Isaiah has said before, Except Yahweh of hosts had left us a seed, We had become as Sodom, and had been made like Gomorrah. 30What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who did not follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith: 31but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, did not arrive at [that] law. 32Why? Because [they sought it] not by faith, but as it were by works. They stumbled at the stone of stumbling; 33even as it is written, Look, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense: And he who believes on him will not be put to shame.