Romans 9:6–29

⁶It is not as though God’s word has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. ⁷Nor because they are Abraham’s descendants are they all his children. On the contrary, “Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.”^{b 8}So it is not the children of the flesh who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as offspring. ⁹For this is what the promise stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”^c

¹⁰Not only that, but Rebecca’s children were conceived by one man, our father Isaac. ¹¹Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God’s plan of election might stand, ¹²not by works but by Him who calls, she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”^{d 13}So it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”^e

¹⁴What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Certainly not! ¹⁵For He says to Moses:

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,

and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”^f

¹⁶So then, it does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. ¹⁷For 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.”^{g 18}Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy , and He hardens whom He wants to harden .

¹⁹One of you will say to me, “Then why does God still find fault? For who can resist His will?” ²⁰But 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?”^{h 21}Does not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?

²²What if God, intending to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction? ²³What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the vessels of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory — ²⁴including us, whom He has called not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles? ²⁵As He says in Hosea:

“I will call them ‘My People’ who are not My people,

and I will call her ‘My Beloved’ who is not My beloved,”ⁱ

²⁶and,

“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.’”^j

²⁷Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

“Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea,

only the remnant will be saved.

²⁸For the Lord will carry out His sentence on the earth

thoroughly and decisively.”^k

²⁹It is just as Isaiah foretold:

“Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us descendants,

we would have become like Sodom,

we would have resembled Gomorrah.”^l