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I speak the truth in Christ - I am not lying,
my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit -
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I have great sorrow and unceasing amguish in my heart.
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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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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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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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It is not as though God's word had failed.
For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
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Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children.
On the contrary, "It isd through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."
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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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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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Not only that, bur Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac.
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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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not by works but by him who calls - she was told, "The older will serve the younger."
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Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
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What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!
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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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It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.
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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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Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy,
and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
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One of you will say to me:
"Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?"
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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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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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What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known,
bore with great patience of the objects of his wrath - prepared for destruction?
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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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even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
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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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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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Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
"Though the number of the Israleites be like the sand by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
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For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality."
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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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What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue the righteousness,
have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;
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but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.
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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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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."
