Romans 9.

Truth I say in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in [the] Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great grief and unceasing pain in my heart, 3 for I could wish, I myself, to be a curse from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to flesh, 4 which are Israelites, whose [is] the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the lawgiving and the service and the promises; 5 whose are the fathers, and of whom [is] the Christ as far as according to flesh, who is over all God blessed for ever. Amen. 6 Not however that the word of God hath failed; for not all those that are of Israel [are] Israel; 7 nor because they are Abraham's seed, [are] they all children, but 'In Isaac shall a seed be called to thee.' 8 That is, not the children of the flesh, these [are] children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned for seed; 9 for this word is of promise, 'According to this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.' 10 And not only [so], but also Rebecca having conceived by one, Isaac our father, 11 for [the children] being not yet born, nor having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might remain, not of works but of him that calleth, 12 it was said to her, 'The greater shall serve the lesser,' 13 according as it is written, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'

14 What then shall we say? Is there unrighteousness with God? Let it not be. 15 For to Moses he saith, 'I will have mercy on whomsoever I have mercy and will pity whomsoever I pity.' 16 So then [it is] not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that hath mercy. 17 For the scripture saith to Pharaoh, 'For this very thing I raised thee up, so that I might display in thee my power, and that my name might be declared in all the earth.' 18 So then on whom he willeth he hath mercy and whom he willeth he hardeneth.

19 Thou wilt say to me then, Why then doth he yet find fault? for his purpose who resisteth? 20 Nay rather, O man, who art thou that answerest against God? Shall the thing moulded say to him that moulded, Why madest thou me thus? 21 Or hath the potter no authority over the clay out of the same lump to make one vessel to honour and another to dishonour? 22 And if God, willing to display his wrath and to make known his power, endured in much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, 23 and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy which he before prepared for glory 24 us whom he also called not only out of Jews, but also out of Gentiles, 25 as also in Hosea he saith, 'I will call that which [is] not-my-people, My people, and the not-beloved, Beloved;' 26 and 'It shall be in the place where it was said to them, Ye are not my people, there they be called sons of [the] living God.' 27 But Esaias crieth concerning Israel, 'Were the number of the sons of Israel as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved, 28 for he is completing and cutting short the matter in righteousness, because a matter cut short will [the] Lord make on the earth.' 29 And according as Esaias said before, 'Unless [the] Lord of Hosts had left us a seed, we had become as Sodom and been made like as Gomorrha.'

30 What then shall we say? That Gentiles which followed not after righteousness obtained righteousness, even [the] righteousness that is by faith; 31 but Israel following after a law of righteousness attained not unto a law of righteousness. 32 Why? Because not by faith but as by works [of law], for they stumbled at the stone of stumbling, 33 even as it is written, 'Behold I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and rock of offence; and he that believeth on him shall not be ashamed.'