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Romans 9

New International Version NIV

1 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit—

2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race,

4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.

5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”

8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.

9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”

10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac.

11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand:

12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”

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

14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!

15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

17 For 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.”

18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?”

20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ”

21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?

23 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—

24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

25 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,”

26 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.’ ”

27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.

28 For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”

29 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.”

30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;

31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal.

32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.

33 As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

The Message Bible MSG

1 At the same time, you need to know that I carry with me at all times a huge sorrow.

2 It's an enormous pain deep within me, and I'm never free of it. I'm not exaggerating - Christ and the Holy Spirit are my witnesses. It's the Israelites . . .

3 If there were any way I could be cursed by the Messiah so they could be blessed by him, I'd do it in a minute. They're my family.

4 I grew up with them. They had everything going for them - family, glory, covenants, revelation, worship, promises,

5 to say nothing of being the race that produced the Messiah, the Christ, who is God over everything, always. Oh, yes!

6 Don't suppose for a moment, though, that God's Word has malfunctioned in some way or other. The problem goes back a long way. From the outset, not all Israelites of the flesh were Israelites of the spirit.

7 It wasn't Abraham's sperm that gave identity here, but God's promise. Remember how it was put: "Your family will be defined by Isaac"?

8 That means that Israelite identity was never racially determined by sexual transmission, but it was God-determined by promise.

9 Remember that promise, "When I come back next year at this time, Sarah will have a son"?

10 And that's not the only time. To Rebecca, also, a promise was made that took priority over genetics. When she became pregnant by our one-of-a-kind ancestor, Isaac,

11 and her babies were still innocent in the womb - incapable of good or bad - she received a special assurance from God. What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don't do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative.

12 God told Rebecca, "The firstborn of your twins will take second place."

13 Later that was turned into a stark epigram: "I loved Jacob; I hated Esau."

14 Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please.

15 God told Moses, "I'm in charge of mercy. I'm in charge of compassion."

16 Compassion doesn't originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God's mercy.

17 The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, "I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power."

18 All we're saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for good or ill.

19 Are you going to object, "So how can God blame us for anything since he's in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?"

20 Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn't talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, "Why did you shape me like this?"

21 Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans?

22 If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure

23 and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn't that all right?

24 Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people.

25 Hosea put it well: I'll call nobodies and make them somebodies; I'll call the unloved and make them beloved.

26 In the place where they yelled out, "You're nobody!" they're calling you "God's living children."

27 Isaiah maintained this same emphasis: If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered and the sum labeled "chosen of God," They'd be numbers still, not names; salvation comes by personal selection.

28 God doesn't count us; he calls us by name. Arithmetic is not his focus.

29 Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth: If our powerful God had not provided us a legacy of living children, We would have ended up like ghost towns, like Sodom and Gomorrah.

30 How can we sum this up? All those people who didn't seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives.

31 And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it.

32 How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their "God projects" that they didn't notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling.

33 Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together: Careful! I've put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion, a stone you can't get around. But the stone is me! If you're looking for me, you'll find me on the way, not in the way.