ABU(i)
1 I SAY the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit,
2 that I have great grief and continual anguish in my heart.
3 For I myself could wish to be accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh;
4 who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service, and the promises;
5 whose are the fathers, and of whom as to the flesh is Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
6 Not as though the word of God has failed. For not all they are Israel, who are of Israel;
7 neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children; but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
8 That is, not they who are the children of the flesh are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned as seed.
9 For the word of promise is this: At this season I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.
10 And not only so; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, our father Isaac
11 (for they being not yet born, nor having done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls),
12 it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger.
13 As it is written: Jacob I loved, But Esau I hated.
14 What then shall we say? Is there unrighteousness with God? Far be it!
15 For he says to Moses: I will have mercy on whomsoever I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomsoever I have compassion.
16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy,
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: Even for this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show forth my power in thee, and that my name might be declared in all the earth.
18 So that, on whom he will he has mercy, and whom he will he hardens.
19 Thou wilt say then to me: Why then does he yet find fault? For who resists his will?
20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him who formed it: Why didst thou make me thus?
21 Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?
22 And what if God, willing to show forth his wrath, and to make known his power, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction;
23 and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory;
24 whom he also called, even us, not from among the Jews only, but also from among the Gentiles?
25 As also he says in Hosea: I will call them my people, who were not my people; And her beloved, who was not beloved.
26 And it shall be, that in the place where it was said to them, Ye are not my people, there shall they be called, Sons of the living God.
27 And Isaiah cries concerning Israel: Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, The remnant shall be saved;
28 For he will finish the work, And cut it short in righteousness; Because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.
29 And as Isaiah has said before: Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, We had become as Sodom, And been made like to Gomorrah.
30 What then shall we say? That Gentiles, who were not following after righteousness, obtained righteousness, the righteousness which is of faith;
31 but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, attained not to [such] a law.
32 Wherefore? Because [they sought it] not by faith, but as being by works of law. For they stumbled against the stone of stumbling;
33 as it is written: Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and he that believes on him shall not be put to shame.