Romans 9

¹I speak the verity in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,

²that I have great sadness & continual sorrow in my heart.

³For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh,

⁴who are Israelites, whose is the adoption of sons, and the glory, and the testament, and the law-giving, & the service, and the promises:

⁵whose are the fathers, & of whom Christ is according to the flesh, who is above all things God blessed for ever. Amen.

⁶But not that the word of God is frustrate. For, not all that are of Israel, they be Israelites:

⁷nor they that are the seed of Abraham, all be children: but in Isaac shall the seed be called unto thee:

⁸that is to say, not they that are the children of the flesh, they are the children of God: but they that are the children of the promise, are esteemed for the seed.

⁹For the word of the promise is this: According to this time will I come; & Sara shall have a son.

¹⁰And not only she, But Rebecca also conceiving of one copulation, of Isaac our father.

¹¹For when they were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God according to election might stand)

¹²not of works, but of the caller it was said to her: That the elder shall serve the younger,

¹³as it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

¹⁴What shall we say then? Is there iniquity with God? God forbid.

¹⁵For to Moyses he saith: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy; and I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy.

¹⁶Therefore it is not of the willer, nor the runner, but of God that sheweth mercy.

¹⁷For the Scripture saith to Pharao: That to this purpose have I raised thee, that in thee I may shew my power; and that my name may be renowned in the whole earth.

¹⁸Therefore on whom he will, he hath mercy; and whom he will, he doth indurate.

¹⁹Thou sayst therefore unto me: Why doth he yet complain? for who resisteth his will?

²⁰O man, who art thou that doest answer God? Doth the work say to him that wrought it: Why hast thou made me thus?

²¹Or hath not the potter of clay, power, of the same mass to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto contumely?

²²And if God willing to shew wrath, & to make his might known, sustained in much patience the vessels of wrath apt to destruction,

²³that he might shew the riches of his glory upon the vessels of mercy which he prepared unto glory.

²⁴Whom also he hath called, us, not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles,

²⁵as in Osee he saith: I will call that which is not my people, my people; & her that was not beloved, beloved: & her that hath not obtained mercy, having obtained mercy.

²⁶And it shall be, in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people: there they shall be called the sons of the living God.

²⁷And Esaie cryeth for Israel: If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remains shall be saved.

²⁸For consummating a word, and abridging it in equity: because a word abridged shall our Lord make upon the earth.

²⁹And as Esay foretold: unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us seed, we had been made like Sodom, and we had been like as Gomorrha.

³⁰What shall we say then? That the Gentiles which pursued not after justice, have apprehended justice, but the justice that is of faith.

³¹But Israel in pursuing the law of justice, is not come unto the law of justice.

³²Why so? Because not of faith, but as it were of works. For they have stumbled at the stone of stumbling,

³³as it is written: Behold I put in Sion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of scandal: and whosoever believeth in him, shall not be confounded.