| 章 |
| 9:1 |
I speak the truth in Christ--I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit--
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| 9:2 |
I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
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| 9:3 |
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,
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| 9:4 |
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.
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| 9:5 |
Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
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| 9:6 |
It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
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| 9:7 |
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."
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| 9:8 |
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.
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| 9:9 |
For this was how the promise was stated: "At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son."
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| 9:10 |
Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac.
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| 9:11 |
Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand:
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| 9:12 |
not by works but by him who calls--she was told, "The older will serve the younger."
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| 9:13 |
Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
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| 9:14 |
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!
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| 9:15 |
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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| 9:16 |
It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.
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| 9:17 |
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."
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| 9:18 |
Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
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| 9:19 |
One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?"
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| 9:20 |
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?' "
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| 9:21 |
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?
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| 9:22 |
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?
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| 9:23 |
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--
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| 9:24 |
even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
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| 9:25 |
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,"
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| 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.' "
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| 9:27 |
Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.
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| 9:28 |
For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality."
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| 9:29 |
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."
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| 9:30 |
What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;
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| 9:31 |
but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.
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| 9:32 |
Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone."
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| 9:33 |
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."
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