1 I am in Christ and I am telling you the truth. I don’t lie. My deepest feelings are ruled by the Holy Spirit. And those feelings tell me that I am not lying: 2 I have great sorrow and always feel much sadness ˻for the Jewish people˼. 3 They 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. 4 They are the people of Israel. Those people ˻(the Jews)˼ are God’s chosen children. Those people have the glory of God and the agreements that God made between himself and his people. God gave them the law ˻of Moses˼ and the ˻temple˼ worship. And God gave his promises to those people ˻(the Jews)˼. 5 Those people are the descendants of our great fathers. And they are the earthly family of Christ. Christ is God over all things. Praise him forever! Amen. 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. 7 And only some of Abraham’s descendants are true children of Abraham ˻(God’s people)˼. ˻This is what God said to Abraham:˼ “Isaac will be your only legal son.” 8 This 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. 9 God’s promise to Abraham was like this: “At the right time I will come back, and Sarah will have a son.” 10 And that is not all. Rebecca also had sons. And those sons had the same father. He is our father Isaac. 11 - 12 But before the two sons were born, God told Rebecca, “The older son will serve the younger.” This was before the boys had done anything good or bad. God said this before they were born so that the boy God chose would be chosen because of God’s own plan. He was chosen because he was the one God wanted to call, not because of anything the boys did. 13 Like the Scripture says, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.” 14 So what should we say about this? Is God not fair? We cannot say that. 15 God 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.” 16 So 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. 17 In the Scripture God says to Pharaoh: “I made you king so you could do this for me. I wanted to show my power in you. I wanted my name to be announced in all the world.” 18 So God shows mercy to the people he wants to show mercy to. And God makes the people stubborn that he wants to make stubborn. 19 So 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?” 21 The 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. 22 It 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. 23 God 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. 24 We are those people. We are the people God called ˻(chose)˼. God called us from the Jews and from the non-Jews. 25 Like the Scripture says in ˻the book of˼ Hosea: “The people that are not mine— I will say that they are my people. And the people that I did not love— I will say that they are the people I love.” 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.” 27 And Isaiah cries out about Israel: “There are so many people of Israel that they are like the grains of sand by the sea. But only a few of those people will be saved. 28 Yes, the Lord will quickly finish judging the people on the earth.” 29 It 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, and we would now be like Gomorrah.” 30 So 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. 31 And the people of Israel tried to follow a law to make themselves right with God. But they did not succeed. 32 Why 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. 33 The Scripture talks about that stone: “Look, I put in Zion a stone that will make people stumble. It is a rock that will make people fall. But any person that trusts in that rock will never be disappointed.”
