Chapter 9

  I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit,  

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  that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.  

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  For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh:  

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  who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service [of God], and the promises;  

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  whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.  

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  But [it is] not as though the word of God hath come to nought. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel:  

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  neither, because they are Abraham's seed, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.  

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  That is, it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed.  

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  For this is a word of promise, According to this season will I come, and Sarah shall have a son.  

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

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  for [the children] being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth,  

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  it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.  

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  Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.  

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  What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.  

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  For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.  

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  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy.  

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  For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth.  

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  So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will be hardeneth.  

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  Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault? For who withstandeth his will?  

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  Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thou make me thus?  

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  Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?  

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  What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction:  

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  and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory,  

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  [even] us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?  

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  As he saith also in Hosea, I will call that my people, which was not my people; And her beloved, that was not beloved.  

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  And it shall be, [that] in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, There shall they be called sons of the living God.  

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  And Isaiah crieth concerning Israel, If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved:  

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  for the Lord will execute [his] word upon the earth, finishing it and cutting it short.  

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  And, as Isaiah hath said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, We had become as Sodom, and had been made like unto Gomorrah.  

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  What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who followed not after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith:  

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  but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, did not arrive at [that] law.  

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  Wherefore? Because [they sought it] not by faith, but as it were by works. They stumbled at the stone of stumbling;  

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  even as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence: And he that believeth on him shall not be put to shame.  

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