Romans 9 (NMV)
1 I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying; my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit,
2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.
3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers and sisters, my own people according to the flesh,
4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises.
5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, came the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,
7 nor because they are Abraham's descendants are they all his children. On the contrary: "Through Isaac your descendants will be named."
8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise who are regarded as descendants.
9 For this is what the promise said: "At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son."
10 And not only that, but Rebekah's children were conceived by one man, our father Isaac.
11 Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose in choosing would stand, not by works but by the One who calls,
12 she was told, "The older will serve the younger."
13 As it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I rejected."
14 What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not!
15 For He says to Moses: "I will show mercy to whom I show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
16 So then, it does not depend on human desire or effort, but on God who shows mercy.
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "For this very reason I raised you up, that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth."
18 So then, He has mercy on whom He wills, and He hardens whom He wills.
19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?"
20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?"
21 Does not the potter have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for common use?
22 What if God, although willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with great patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 And what if He did this to make known the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
24 even us, whom He also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles [non-Jews]?
25 As He says in Hosea: "I will call those who were not My people, 'My people,' and her who was not beloved, 'beloved.'"
26 And, "In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people,' there they will be called sons of the living God."
27 Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will be saved.
28 For the Lord will carry out His sentence on the earth fully and without delay."
29 And just as Isaiah foretold: "If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom and would have resembled Gomorrah."
30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue being made right with God, have obtained it, a righteousness that comes by faith,
31 but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not reach that law.
32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,
33 as it is written: "Look, I am laying in Zion a stone that causes stumbling and a rock that causes falling, but the one who believes in Him will not be put to shame."