49 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
49 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
# Chapter 9
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1 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience testifies to me through the Holy Spirit—
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2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
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3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the benefit of my brothers and sisters, my own flesh and blood.
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4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises.
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5 The ancestors are theirs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Christ, who is God over all, praised forever. Amen.
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6 Now it is not as though the word of God has failed, because not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
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7 Neither is it the case that all of Abraham’s children are his descendants. On the contrary, your offspring will be traced through Isaac.
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8 That is, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but the children of the promise are considered to be the offspring.
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9 For this is the statement of the promise: At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.
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10 And not only that, but Rebekah conceived children through one man, our father Isaac.
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11 For though her sons had not been born yet or done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election might stand—
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12 not from works but from the one who calls—she was told, The older will serve the younger.
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13 As it is written: I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.
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14 What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not!
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15 For he tells Moses, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
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16 So then, it does not depend on human will or effort but on God who shows mercy.
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17 For the Scripture tells Pharaoh, I raised you up for this reason so that I may display my power in you and that my name may be proclaimed in the whole earth.
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18 So then, he has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
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19 You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does he still find fault? For who resists his will?”
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20 On the contrary, who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
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21 Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor?
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22 And what if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction?
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23 And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory—
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24 on us, the ones he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
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25 As it also says in Hosea,
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I will call Not My People, My People,
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and she who is Unloved, Beloved.
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26 And it will be in the place where they were told,
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you are not my people,
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there they will be called sons of the living God.
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27 But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel,
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Though the number of Israelites
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is like the sand of the sea,
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only the remnant will be saved;
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28 since the Lord will execute his sentence
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completely and decisively on the earth.
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29 And just as Isaiah predicted:
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If the Lord of Armies had not left us offspring,
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we would have become like Sodom,
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and we would have been made like Gomorrah.
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30 What should we say then? Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained righteousness—namely the righteousness that comes from faith.
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31 But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not achieved the righteousness of the law.
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32 Why is that? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.
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33 As it is written,
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Look, I am putting a stone in Zion to stumble over
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and a rock to trip over,
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and the one who believes on him
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will not be put to shame. |