19 One of you will say to me:v “Then why does God still blame us?w For who is able to resist his will?”x 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?y “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,z ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ”h a 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?b

22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patiencec the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?d 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glorye known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for gloryf—24 even us, whom he also called,g not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?h 25 As he says in Hosea:

“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;

and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”i i

26 and,

“In the very place where it was said to them,

‘You are not my people,’

there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ ”j j

27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,k

only the remnant will be saved.l

28 For the Lord will carry out

his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”k m

29 It is just as Isaiah said previously:

“Unless the Lord Almightyn

had left us descendants,

we would have become like Sodom,

we would have been like Gomorrah.”l o