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## God's Chosen People, Israel 

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I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, 

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that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. 

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For I could wish that I myself were accursed, _separated_ from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh, 

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who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the _temple_ service and the promises, 

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whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. 

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But _it is_ not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are _descended_ from Israel; 

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nor are they all children because they are Abraham's seed, but: "through Isaac your seed will be named." 

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That is, the children of the flesh are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are considered as seed. 

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For this is the word of promise: "At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son." 

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And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived _twins_ by one man, our father Isaac; 

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for though _the twins_ were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that the purpose of God according to _His_ choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, 

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it was said to her, "The older shall serve the younger." 

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Just as it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." 

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What shall we say then? Is there any unrighteousness with God? May it never be! 

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For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 

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So then it _does_ not _depend_ on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who has mercy. 

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

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So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. 

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You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" 

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On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? Will the thing molded say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this"? 

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Or does not the potter have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 

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And what if God, wanting to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath having been prepared for destruction, 

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and in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory-- 

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_even_ us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles? 

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As He says also in Hosea, "I will call those who were not My people, 'My people,' And her who was not beloved, 'beloved.'" 

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"And 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 the living God." 

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And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, "Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved; 

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for the Lord will execute His word on the land, thoroughly and quickly." 

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And just as Isaiah foretold, "Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a seed, We would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah." 

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What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, laid hold of righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; 

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but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not attain _that_ law. 

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Why? Because _they did_ not _pursue it_ by faith, but as though _it were_ by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, 

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just as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, And the one who believes upon Him will not be put to shame."