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Romans 9

1I speak the truth in Christ; I am not lying, and my conscience bears witness with me in the Holy Spirit: 2I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my relatives according to the flesh. 4They are Israelites, and theirs are the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5Theirs are the fathers, and from them comes the Messiah according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

6But it is not as though God's word has failed. For not all who are from Israel are Israel, 7nor are all children because they are Abraham's seed; rather, “Through Isaac your seed will be named.” 8That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are God's children, but the children of the promise are counted as seed. 9For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.” 10And not only that, but Rebekah also conceived by one man, our father Isaac. 11For when the children had not yet been born or done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to his choice might stand, 12not from deeds but from the one who calls, she was told, “The older will be a slave to the younger.” 13As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

14What, then, will we say? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I have compassion.” 16So then, it does not depend on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17For scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up: to demonstrate my power in you, and so that my name might be proclaimed throughout all the earth.” 18So then, he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

19You will then say to me, “Why, then, does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will?” 20But you, a human being—who are you to answer back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” 21Or does the potter not have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? 22But what if God, wanting to demonstrate his wrath and make his power known, endured with great patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23and did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory—24us, whom he also called, not only from Jews but also from Gentiles? 25As he also says in Hosea, “I will call those who are not my people my people, and her who was not loved beloved.” 26“And in the place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called sons of the living God.” 27And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the sons of Israel is like the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved, 28for the Lord will carry out his word on the earth, completing it and cutting it short.” 29And as Isaiah said beforehand, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.”

30What, then, will we say? That Gentiles who were not pursuing righteousness attained righteousness, the righteousness that is by faith. 31But Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not reach that law. 32Why? Because they pursued it not by faith but as though by deeds. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, 33as it is written, “Look, I am laying in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock that causes a fall, and the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Translation notes 6

9:3–5 — Paul's relatives and the Messiah. “Brothers” here refers to Paul's fellow Israelites, including women. “Could wish” expresses his anguished desire, not an assertion that his being cursed would save others. “According to the flesh” concerns ancestry. Verse 5 is punctuated as calling the Messiah God; another defensible punctuation ends the ancestry statement and begins a separate blessing: “God who is over all be blessed forever.” This is an interpretive punctuation question, not a different Greek wording.

9:4–13 — Sons, seed, and choice. Adoption as sons retains the inheritance language. “Seed” means descendants, and “fathers” refers to Israel's ancestors. “God's purpose according to his choice” is often called his purpose in election. The love/hate wording is retained from Malachi 1:2–3; the translation does not soften hate to “love less” or decide the whole relationship between individuals and the peoples descended from them.

9:15–18 — Mercy and hardening. The quotations draw on Exodus 33:19 and 9:16. “The one who runs” retains the image of exertion. “Raised you up” can concern bringing Pharaoh onto the historical scene or keeping him in place; it is not necessarily resurrection. God's hardening is stated directly, without adding a theological explanation of how divine action and human responsibility fit together.

9:21–24 — Potter and vessels. Vessels are containers made from clay. “Prepared for destruction” does not name the one who prepared them; verse 23 explicitly names God as preparing the vessels of mercy beforehand. “Wanting” can be understood as “although wanting.” “What if” and “did so” supply English needed for Paul's unfinished conditional construction; the draft does not insert an explicit conclusion about what God must therefore be allowed to do.

9:25–29 — Prophetic quotations. Paul draws on Hosea 2:23 and 1:10 and Isaiah 10:22–23 and 1:9. The feminine “her” in verse 25 preserves the unloved woman's imagery. “Completing it and cutting it short” in verse 28 pictures a decisive, curtailed execution of God's word. “Lord of hosts” translates the title Sabaoth, referring to the Lord's armies; it is unrelated to Sabbath. The seed left in verse 29 means surviving descendants.

9:30–33 — Pursuit and stumbling. “Law of righteousness” keeps Paul's compact expression rather than replacing it with an explanation of why Israel failed. “They pursued it” in verse 32 is supplied from verse 31. The stone quotation combines Isaiah 8:14 and 28:16. The same promise of not being put to shame returns at 10:11 with “everyone” explicitly added there.