Romans 9:1–23

I speak the truth in Christ: I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost:

²That I have great sadness and continual sorrow in my heart.

³For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my brethren: who are my kinsmen according to the flesh:

⁴Who are Israelites: to whom belongeth the adoption as of children and the glory and the testament and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises:

⁵Whose are the fathers and of whom is Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen.

⁶Not as though the word of God hath miscarried. For all are not Israelites that are of Israel.

⁷Neither are all they that are the seed of Abraham, children: but in Isaac shall thy seed be called.

⁸That is to say, not they that are the children of the flesh are the children of God: but they that are the children of the promise are accounted for the seed.

⁹For this is the word of promise: According to this time will I come. And Sara shall have a son.

¹⁰And not only she. But when Rebecca also had conceived at once of Isaac our father.

¹¹For when the children were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God according to election might stand):

¹²Not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger.

¹³As it is written: Jacob I have loved: but Esau I have hated.

¹⁴What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? God forbid!

¹⁵For he saith to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy.

¹⁶So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

¹⁷For the scripture saith to Pharao: To this purpose have I raised thee, that I may shew my power in thee and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.

¹⁸Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will. And whom he will, he hardeneth.

¹⁹Thou wilt say therefore to me: Why doth he then find fault? For who resisteth his will?

²⁰O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus?

²¹Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour?

²²What if God, willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction,

²³That he might shew the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he hath prepared unto glory?