16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who aruns, but on bGod who has mercy.

17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “aFor this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed 1throughout the whole earth.”

18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He ahardens whom He desires.

19 aYou will say to me then, “bWhy does He still find fault? For cwho resists His will?”

20 On the contrary, who are you, aO man, who banswers back to God? cThe thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?

21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel 1for honorable use and another 2for common use?

22 1What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much apatience vessels of wrath bprepared for destruction?

23 And He did so to make known athe riches of His glory upon bvessels of mercy, which He cprepared beforehand for glory,

24 even us, whom He also acalled, bnot from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

25 As He says also in Hosea,

“aI will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’

And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’ ”

26 “aAnd it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’

There they shall be called sons of bthe living God.”

27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “aThough the number of the sons of Israel be blike the sand of the sea, it is cthe remnant that will be saved;

28 afor the Lord will execute His word on the earth, 1thoroughly and 2quickly.”

29 And just as Isaiah foretold,

“aUnless bthe Lord of 1Sabaoth had left to us a 2posterity,

cWe would have become like Sodom, and would have 3resembled Gomorrah.”

30 aWhat shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even bthe righteousness which is 1by faith;

31 but Israel, apursuing a law of righteousness, did not barrive at that law.

32 Why? Because they did not pursue it 1by faith, but as though it were 1by works. They stumbled over athe stumbling stone,

33 just as it is written,

“aBehold, I lay in Zion ba stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,

cAnd he who believes in Him dwill not be 1disappointed.”