58 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
58 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
God's Sovereign Choice
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# Chapter 9
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1. I am speaking the truth in Christ--I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in 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 accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
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4. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
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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.
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6. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,
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7. and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named."
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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.
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9. For this is what the promise said: "
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About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son."
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10. And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac,
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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 him who calls--
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12. she was told, "The older will serve the younger."
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13. As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
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14. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means!
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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."
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16. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
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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."
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18. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
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19. You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?"
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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?"
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21. Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
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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,
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23. in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory--
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24. even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
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25. As indeed he says in Hosea,
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"Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,'
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and her who was not beloved I will call 'beloved.'"
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26. "And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,'
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there they will be called 'sons of the living God.'"
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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,
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28. for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay."
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29. And as Isaiah predicted,
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"If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring,
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we would have been like Sodom
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and become like Gomorrah."
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Israel's Unbelief
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30. What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith;
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31. but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.
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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,
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33. as it is written,
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"Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
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and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."
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