¹Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. ²I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. ³For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. ⁴For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified.

⁵Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on the law shall live by it. ⁶But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down) ⁷or “Who will descend into the abyss?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). ⁸But what does it say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); ⁹because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved. ¹¹The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” ¹²For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. ¹³For, “every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

¹⁴But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? ¹⁵And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!” ¹⁶But they have not all obeyed the gospel; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” ¹⁷So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.

¹⁸But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have; for

“Their voice has gone out to all the earth,

and their words to the ends of the world.”

¹⁹Again I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says,

“I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation;

with a foolish nation I will make you angry.”

²⁰Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,

“I have been found by those who did not seek me;

I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.”

²¹But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

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