Paul’s Concern for the Jews
1I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit,+ 2that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.+ 3For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers’ sake, my relatives according to the flesh,+ 4who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises;+ 5of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen.+God’s Sovereign Choice
Genesis 25:19–28; Malachi 1:1–5
6But it is not as though the word of God has come to nothing. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel.+ 7Neither, because they are Abraham’s offspring, are they all children. But, “your offspring will be accounted as from Isaac.”+ 8That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as heirs.+ 9For this is a word of promise, “At the appointed time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.”+ 10Not only so, but Rebekah also conceived by one, by our father Isaac.+ 11For being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls,+ 12it was said to her, “The elder will serve the younger.”+ 13Even as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”+ 14What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be!+ 15For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”+ 16So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy.+ 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”+ 18So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.+ 19You will say then to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?”+ 20But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”+ 21Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?+ 22What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,+ 23and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,+ 24us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?+ 25As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.”+ 26“It will be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ There they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”+ 27Isaiah cries concerning Israel, “If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant who will be saved;+ 28for He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.”+ 29As Isaiah has said before, “Unless the Lord of Armies had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah.”+