Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Romans 9
Paul’s Anguish for Israel
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears witness with me in the Holy Spirit— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers and sisters, my own people according to the flesh. They are Israelites. To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the worship, and the promises. The ancestors belong to them, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
God’s Promise Has Not Failed
But it is not as though God’s word has failed. For not all who come from Israel are Israel, and not all are children simply because they are Abraham’s offspring. Rather, “Through Isaac your offspring will be named.” That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are God’s children, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.”
And not only that. Rebekah also conceived children by one man, our father Isaac. Before they were born or had done anything good or bad—so that God’s purpose according to election might remain, not from works but from the one who calls— she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Mercy and God’s Freedom
What then should we say? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the one who wants or the one who runs, but on God who shows mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up: so that I might show my power in you and so that my name might be proclaimed throughout the earth.” So then God has mercy on whomever he wants, and he hardens whomever he wants.
You will say to me, then, “Why does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will?” But who are you, human being, to answer back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” Or does the potter not have authority over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? And what if God, wanting to show his wrath and make his power known, endured with great patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
Called from Jews and Gentiles
As he also says in Hosea,
“I will call those who were not my people, ‘My people,’
and the one who was not loved, ‘Beloved.’
And in the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called children of the living God.”
Isaiah cries out concerning Israel,
“Though the number of the children of Israel is like the sand of the sea,
only the remnant will be saved,
for the Lord will carry out his word on the earth,
completing it and cutting it short.”
And as Isaiah said beforehand,
“If the Lord of armies had not left us offspring,
we would have become like Sodom
and been made like Gomorrah.”
Righteousness and the Stumbling Stone
What then should we say? Gentiles who were not pursuing righteousness attained righteousness—the righteousness that comes from trust.
But Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law.
Why? Because they pursued it not from trust but as though from works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,
just as it is written,
“Look, I am placing in Zion a stone that causes stumbling
and a rock that causes offense,
and the one who trusts in him will not be put to shame.”