✧I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, ✧2That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. ✧3For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: ✧4Who are Israelites; to whom [pertaineth] 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 as concerning the flesh Christ [came], who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. ✧6Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they [are] not all Israel, which are of Israel: ✧7Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, [are they] all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. ✧8That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these [are] not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. ✧9For this [is] the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son. ✧10And not only [this]; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, [even] by our father Isaac; ✧11(For [the children] being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) ✧12It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. ✧13As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. ✧14What shall we say then? [Is there] unrighteousness with God? God forbid. ✧15For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. ✧16So then [it is] not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. ✧17For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. ✧18Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will [have mercy], and whom he will he hardeneth. ✧19Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? ✧20Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed [it], Why hast thou made me thus? ✧21Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? ✧22[What] if God, willing to shew [his] wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: ✧23And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, ✧24Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? ✧25As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. ✧26And it shall come to pass, [that] in the place where it was said unto them, Ye [are] not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. ✧27Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: ✧28For he will finish the work, and cut [it] short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. ✧29And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha. ✧30What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. ✧31But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. ✧32Wherefore? Because [they sought it] not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; ✧33As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.