Romans 9
Open in the reader1I speak the truth in The-Anointed-One; I am not lying, as confirmed by my conscience in the Devoted Spirit.
2I have deep sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from The-Anointed-One for the sake of my brothers, my own flesh and blood,
4the people of Strives-with-God. 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 The-Anointed-One, who is God over all, forever worthy of praise! Amen.
6It is not as though God’s word has failed. For not all who are descended from He-Strives-with-God are He-Strives-with-God.
7Nor because they are Father-of-a-Multitude’s descendants are they all his children. On the contrary, “Through He-Laughs 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 Princess will have a son.”
10Not only that, but Rebecca’s children were conceived by one man, our father He-Laughs.
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: “Heel-Grabber I loved, but Hairy I hated.”
14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Certainly not!
15For He says to Drawn-Out: “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 Praised-Ones, but also from the Nations?
25As He says in Salvation: “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.’”
27Salvation-of-He-Who-Is cries out concerning He-Strives-with-God: “Though the number of the children of He-Strives-with-God 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 Salvation-of-He-Who-Is foretold: “Unless the Lord of-Hosts had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Heap-of-Ruins.”
30What then will we say? That the Nations, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;
31but He-Strives-with-God, who pursued a teaching of righteousness, has not attained it.
32Why not? Because their pursuit was not by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,
33as it is written: “See, I lay in Marker a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.”