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¹ Truth I say in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing testimony with me in the Holy Spirit,² that I have great grief and unceasing pain in my heart—³ for I was wishing, I myself, to be accursed from the Christ—for my brothers, my relatives, according to the flesh,⁴ who are Israelites, whose [is] the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the lawgiving, and the service, and the promises,⁵ whose [are] the fathers, and of whom [is] the Christ, according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed for all ages. Amen.

⁶ And it is not possible that the word of God has failed; for not all who [are] of Israel are these of Israel;⁷ nor because they are seed of Abraham [are] all children, but, "in Isaac will a seed be called to you";⁸ that is, the children of the flesh—these [are] not children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for seed;⁹ for the word of promise [is] this: "According to this time I will come, and there will be to Sarah a son."¹⁰ And not only [so], but also Rebecca, having conceived by one—our father Isaac¹¹ (for they being not yet born, neither having done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to [divine] selection, might remain; not of works, but of Him who is calling),¹² it was said to her, "The greater will serve the less";¹³ according as it has been written: "Jacob I loved, and Esau I hated."

¹⁴ What, then, will we say? Unrighteousness [is] with God? Let it not be!¹⁵ For to Moses He says, "I will do kindness to whom I do kindness, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion";¹⁶ so then—not of him who is willing, nor of him who is running, but of God who is doing kindness;¹⁷ for the Writing says to Pharaoh, "For this very thing I raised you up, that I might show in you My power, and that My Name might be declared in all the land";¹⁸ so then, to whom He wills, He does kindness, and to whom He wills, He hardens.¹⁹ You will say, then, to me, "Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His counsel?"²⁰ No, but, O man, who are you that are answering again to God? Will the thing formed say to Him who formed [it], Why did you make me thus?²¹ Does the potter not have authority over the clay, out of the same lump to make one vessel to honor and one to dishonor?²² And if God, willing to show the wrath and to make known His power, endured, in much long suffering, vessels of wrath fitted for destruction,²³ and that He might make known the riches of His glory on vessels of kindness, that He before prepared for glory, whom also He called—us—²⁴ not only out of Jews, but also out of nations,

²⁵ as also in Hosea He says, "I will call what [is] not My people—My people; and her not beloved—Beloved,²⁶ and it will be—in the place where it was said to them, You [are] not My people; there they will be called sons of the living God."²⁷ And Isaiah cries concerning Israel, "If the number of the sons of Israel may be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved;²⁸ for a matter He is finishing, and is cutting short in righteousness, because a matter cut short will the LORD do on the land."²⁹ And according as Isaiah says before, "Except the LORD of Hosts left to us a seed, we had become as Sodom, and we had been made like Gomorrah."

³⁰ What, then, will we say? That nations who are not pursuing righteousness attained to righteousness, and righteousness that [is] of faith,³¹ and Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at a law of righteousness;³² why? Because—not by faith, but as by works of law; for they stumbled at the stone of stumbling,³³ according as it has been written: "Behold, I place in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; and everyone who is believing thereon will not be ashamed."