1I am in Christ and I am telling you the truth. I don’t lie. My deepest feelings are ruled by the Holy Spirit.
2I have great sorrow and always feel much sadness {for the Jewish people}.
3They are my brothers and sisters, my earthly family. I wish I could help them. I would even have a curse on me and cut myself off from Christ if that would help them.
4They are the people of Israel.
5Those people are the descendants
6{Yes, I feel sorry for the Jewish people.} I don’t mean that God failed to keep his promise to them. But only some of the people of Israel (the Jews) are truly God’s people.
7And only some of Abraham’s
8This means that not all of Abraham’s descendants are God’s true children. Abraham’s true children are those people that become God’s children because of the promise God made to Abraham.
9God’s promise to Abraham was like this: “At the right time I will come back, and Sarah will have a son.”
10And that is not all. Rebecca also had sons. And those sons had the same father. He is our father
11But before the two sons were born, God told Rebecca, “The older son will serve the younger.”
12(9:11)
13Like the Scripture
14So what should we say about this? Is God not fair? We cannot say that.
15God said to Moses, “I will show mercy to the person that I want to show mercy to. I will show pity to the person that I want to show pity to.”
16So God will choose the person he decides to show mercy to. And his choice does not depend on what people want or try to do.
17In the Scripture
18So God shows mercy to the people he wants to show mercy to. And God makes the people stubborn that he wants to make stubborn.
19So one of you will ask me: “If God controls the things we do, then why does God blame us {for our sins}?”
20{Don’t ask that.} You are only people. And people have no right to question God. A clay jar does not question the man that made it. The jar does not say, “Why did you make me like this?”
21The man that makes the jar can make anything he wants to make. He can use the same clay to make different things. He can make one thing for special purposes and another thing for daily use.
22It is the same way with what God has done. God wanted to show his anger and to let people see his power. But God endured patiently those people he was angry with— people that were ready to be destroyed.
23God waited with patience so that he could make known his rich glory. God wanted to give that glory to the people that receive his mercy. God has prepared these people to have his glory.
24We are those people. We are the people God called (chose). God called us from the Jews and from the non-Jews.
25Like the Scripture
26“And in the same place that God said, ‘You are not my people’— in that place they will be called sons of the living God.” Hosea 1:10
27And Isaiah cries out about Israel
28Yes, the Lord will quickly finish judging the people on the earth.”
29It is like Isaiah said: “The Lord has all power. The Lord saved some of his people for us. If he had not done that, then we would now be like Sodom,
30So what does all this mean? It means this: That the non-Jews were not trying to make themselves right with God. But they were made right with God. They became right because of their faith.
31And the people of Israel
32Why not? Because they tried to make themselves right by the things they did. They did not trust in God to make them right. They fell over the stone that makes people fall.
33The Scripture