Concern for Jews
- I speak the truth in the Anointed. I don’t lie; my conscience is testifying with me in the Holy Spirit
- that my grief is great and unceasing anguish is in my heart.
- For I was wishing myself to be anathema – separated from the Anointed – for the sake of my brothers; my kinsmen according to the flesh,
- who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory, and the covenants, and the Mosaic legislation, and the sacred service, and the promises;
- to whom belong the forefathers, and from whom came the Anointed according to the flesh; the One who is God over all and blessed through the ages, Amen.
- But it’s not as though the word of God has failed, for not all the men of Israel are these men of Israel.
- Nor are all children because they’re Abraham’s seed, but “In Isaac your seed will be called.”
- That is, it’s not these children of the flesh who are children of God; but the children of the promise are considered to be seed.
- For the word of promise was this: “At this time, I will come and there will be a son through Sarah.”
- And not only that, but also Rebecca having her conception by one man, Isaac our father.
- For while not yet having been born nor having done anything good or evil – so the purpose of God in regard to His elect might remain not from works, but from the One calling them –
- it was said to her: “The older will serve the younger.”
- Just as it is *written: “Jacob I ^loved, but Esau I hated.”
The Potter and the Clay
- Then what will we say? There isn’t injustice with God, is there? May it never be!
- For He says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
- So then it’s not from the man desiring nor the man running, but from God having mercy.
- For the scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, so that I might demonstrate My power in you, and so that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
- So then He has mercy on whom He desires and He hardens whom He desires.
- Therefore you will say to me: “Then why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?”
- On the contrary O man, who are you? The man contradicting God? The thing that’s molded won’t say to the One who molded it: “Why did you make me this way?”, will it?
- Or doesn’t the potter have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
- And what if God – desiring to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known – bore in much patience the vessels of wrath *fit for destruction?
- And so He might make known the wealth of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
- whom He also called us, not only from the Jews, but also from the gentiles.
- Just as He also says in Hosea: “I will call the man who isn’t My people, My people; and the woman who hasn’t been ^loved, the woman who has been ^loved.”
- And: “it will be in the place where it was said to them, “you aren’t My people”, there they will be called sons of the living God.”
- Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel might be as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.
- “For the Lord will do His word; fulfilling and swiftly executing it upon the land.”
- And as Isaiah has foretold: “Unless the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we would’ve become like Sodom and we would’ve been made like Gomorrah.”
- Then what will we say? That the gentiles not pursuing righteousness attained righteousness? (And I mean the righteousness from faith)
- But Israel pursuing a law of righteousness didn’t attain to that law?
- Why? Because it wasn’t from faith but as from works, they stumbled over the stone of stumbling,
- just as it is *written: “Behold, I place a stone of stumbling in Zion, and a rock of offense. And the man believing on Him won’t be put to shame.”