Chapter 9

  Truth I say in Christ, I lie not, 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 anathema from the Christ -- for my brethren, my kindred, 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 over all, God blessed to the ages. Amen.  

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  And it is not possible that the word of God hath failed; for not all who [are] of Israel are these Israel;  

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  nor because they are seed of Abraham [are] all children, but -- 'in Isaac shall a seed be called to thee;'  

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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 shall be to Sarah a son.'  

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  And not only [so], but also Rebecca, having conceived by one -- Isaac our father --  

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  (for they being not yet born, neither having done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to choice, might remain; not of works, but of Him who is calling,) it was said to her --  

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  'The greater shall serve the less;'  

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  according as it hath been written, 'Jacob I did love, and Esau I did hate.'  

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  What, then, shall we say? unrighteousness [is] with God? let it not be!  

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  for to Moses He saith, '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 saith to Pharaoh -- 'For this very thing I did raise thee up, that I might shew in thee My power, and that My name might be declared in all the land;'  

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  so, then, to whom He willeth, He doth kindness, and to whom He willeth, He doth harden.  

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  Thou wilt say, then, to me, 'Why yet doth He find fault? for His counsel who hath resisted?'  

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  nay, but, O man, who art thou that art answering again to God? shall the thing formed say to Him who did form [it], Why me didst thou make thus?  

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  hath not the potter authority over the clay, out of the same lump to make the one vessel to honour, and the one to dishonour?  

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  And if God, willing to shew the wrath and to make known His power, did endure, 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 did call -- us --  

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  not only out of Jews, but also out of nations,  

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  as also in Hosea He saith, 'I will call what [is] not My people -- My people; and her not beloved -- Beloved,  

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  and it shall be -- in the place where it was said to them, Ye [are] not My people; there they shall be called sons of the living God.'  

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  And Isaiah doth cry concerning Israel, 'If the number of the sons of Israel may be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall 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 upon the land.  

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  and according as Isaiah saith before, 'Except the Lord of Sabaoth did leave to us a seed, as Sodom we had become, and as Gomorrah we had been made like.'  

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  What, then, shall we say? that nations who are not pursuing righteousness did attain to righteousness, and righteousness that [is] of faith,  

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  and Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, at a law of righteousness did not arrive;  

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  wherefore? because -- not by faith, but as by works of law; for they did stumble at the stone of stumbling,  

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  according as it hath been written, 'Lo, I place in Sion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence; and every one who is believing thereon shall not be ashamed.'  

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