Romans 9

The apostle Paul writing (God speaking via scripture...The Word), being a discourse about God sovereignly choosing to do whatever to whomever He pleases.

NIV Bible 1973-78:   

God's Sovereign Choice

¹I speak the truth in Christ--I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit-- ²I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, ⁴the 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. ⁵Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
⁶It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. ⁷Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."⁸In 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. ⁹For this was how the promise was stated: "At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son."
¹⁰Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. ¹¹Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand: ¹²not by works but by him who calls--she was told, "The older will serve the younger." ¹³Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
¹⁴What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! ¹⁵For he says to Moses,
   "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
       and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." ¹⁶It does not, therefore, 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." ¹⁸Therefore 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 blame us? For who resists 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?' " ²¹Does 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?
²²What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? ²³What 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-- ²⁴even us, whom he also 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 loved one' who is not my loved one," 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.' "
²⁷Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
   "Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
       only the remnant will be saved.
    ²⁸For the Lord will carry out
       his sentence on earth with speed and finality."
²⁹It 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."

 Israel's Unbelief:

³⁰What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; ³¹but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. ³²Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone." ³³As 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."

King James Bible of 1611: (see here)

NAS Bible of 1960: (see here)

check out the Highest TRUTH

(posted 4 January 2004)