Paul’s Concern for the Jews
1I speak the truth in Christ; I am not lying, as confirmed by my conscience in the Holy Spirit.+ 2I have deep 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, my own flesh and blood,+ 4the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory and the covenants; theirs the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises.+ 5Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them proceeds the human descent of Christ, who is God over all, forever worthy of praise! Amen.+God’s Sovereign Choice
Genesis 25:19–28; Malachi 1:1–5
6It is not as though God’s word has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.+ 7Nor because they are Abraham’s descendants are they all his children. On the contrary, “Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.”+ 8So it is not the children of the flesh who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as offspring.+ 9For this is what the promise stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”+ 10Not only that, but Rebecca’s children were conceived by one man, our father Isaac.+ 11Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God’s plan of election might stand,+ 12not by works but by Him who calls, she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”+ 13So it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”+ 14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Certainly not!+ 15For He says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”+ 16So then, it does not 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 find fault? For who can resist 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 from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?+ 22What if God, intending to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction?+ 23What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the vessels of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory —+ 24including us, whom He has 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 Beloved’ who is not My beloved,”+ 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 is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.+ 28For the Lord will carry out His sentence on the earth thoroughly and decisively.”+ 29It is just as Isaiah foretold: “Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.”+