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Truth I say in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing testimony with me in the Holy Spirit,
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that I have great grief and unceasing pain in my heart—
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for I was wishing, I myself, to be accursed from the Christ—for my brothers, my relatives, according to the flesh,
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who are Israelites, whose [is] the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the lawgiving, and the service, and the promises,
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whose [are] the fathers, and of whom [is] the Christ, according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed for all ages. Amen.
God’s Sovereign Choice
(Genesis 25:19–28; Malachi 1:1–5)
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And it is not possible that the word of God has failed; for not all who [are] of Israel are these of Israel;
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nor because they are seed of Abraham [are] all children, but, “in Isaac will a seed be called to you”;
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that is, the children of the flesh—these [are] not children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for seed;
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for the word of promise [is] this: “According to this time I will come, and there will be to Sarah a son.”
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And not only [so], but also Rebecca, having conceived by one—our father Isaac
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(for they being not yet born, neither having done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to [divine] selection, might remain; not of works, but of Him who is calling),
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it was said to her, “The greater will serve the less”;
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according as it has been written: “Jacob I loved, and Esau I hated.”
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What, then, will we say? Unrighteousness [is] with God? Let it not be!
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For to Moses He says, “I will do kindness to whom I do kindness, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion”;
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so then—not of him who is willing, nor of him who is running, but of God who is doing kindness;
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for the Writing says to Pharaoh, “For this very thing I raised you up, that I might show in you My power, and that My Name might be declared in all the land”;
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so then, to whom He wills, He does kindness, and to whom He wills, He hardens.
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You will say, then, to me, “Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His counsel?”
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No, but, O man, who are you that are answering again to God? Will the thing formed say to Him who formed [it], Why did you make me thus?
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Does the potter not have authority over the clay, out of the same lump to make one vessel to honor and one to dishonor?
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And if God, willing to show the wrath and to make known His power, endured, in much long suffering, vessels of wrath fitted for destruction,
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and that He might make known the riches of His glory on vessels of kindness, that He before prepared for glory, whom also He called—us—
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not only out of Jews, but also out of nations,
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as also in Hosea He says, “I will call what [is] not My people—My people; and her not beloved—Beloved,
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and it will be—in the place where it was said to them, You [are] not My people; there they will be called sons of the living God.”
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And Isaiah cries concerning Israel, “If the number of the sons of Israel may be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved;
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for a matter He is finishing, and is cutting short in righteousness, because a matter cut short will the LORD do on the land.”
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And according as Isaiah says before, “Except the LORD of Hosts left to us a seed, we had become as Sodom, and we had been made like Gomorrah.”
Israel’s Unbelief
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What, then, will we say? That nations who are not pursuing righteousness attained to righteousness, and righteousness that [is] of faith,
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and Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at a law of righteousness;
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why? Because—not by faith, but as by works of law; for they stumbled at the stone of stumbling,
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according as it has been written: “Behold, I place in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; and everyone who is believing thereon will not be ashamed.”
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