Letter to the Romans

it was said to her, "The elder will serve the younger."

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

What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be!

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

So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy.

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth."

So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.

You will say then to me, "Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?"

But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?"

Or hasn't the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?

What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction,

and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,

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

As he says also in Hosea, "I will call them 'my people,' which were not my people; And her 'beloved,' who was not beloved."

"It will be that in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' There they will be called 'sons of the living God.'"

Isaiah cries concerning Israel, "If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, It is the remnant who will be saved;

For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, Because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth."

As Isaiah has said before, "Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a seed, We would have become like Sodom, And would have been made like Gomorrah."

What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn't follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith;

but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn't arrive at the law of righteousness.