^1. I speak the truth in Christ--I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit--

^2. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

^3. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race,

^4. the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.

^5. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! [1] Amen.

^6. It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

^7. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." [2]

^8. In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring.

^9. For this was how the promise was stated: "At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son." [3]

^10. Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac.

^11. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand:

^12. not by works but by him who calls--she was told, "The older will serve the younger." [4]

^13. Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." [5]

^14. What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!

^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." [6]

^16. It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.

^17. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." [7]

^18. Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

^19. One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?"

^20. But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, `Why did you make me like this?'" [8]

^21. Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

^22. What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction?

^23. What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory--

^24. even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

^25. As he says in Hosea: "I will call them `my people' who are not my people; and I will call her `my loved one' who is not my loved one," [9]

^26. and, "It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, `You are not my people,' they will be called `sons of the living God.'" [10]

^27. Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.

^28. For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality." [11]

^29. It is just as Isaiah said previously: "Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah." [12]

^30. What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;

^31. but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.

^32. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone."

^33. As it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." [13]