Глава 9

  • 1. I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit,
  • 2. that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.
  • 3. For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren’s sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
  • 4. who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service [of God], and the promises;
  • 5. whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
  • 6. But [it is] not as though the word of God hath come to nought. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel:
  • 7. neither, because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
  • 8. That is, it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed.
  • 9. For this is a word of promise, According to this season will I come, and Sarah shall have a son.
  • 10. And not only so; but Rebecca also having conceived by one, [even] by our father Isaac--
  • 11. for [the children] being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth,
  • 12. it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
  • 13. Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
  • 14. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
  • 15. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.
  • 16. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy.
  • 17. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth.
  • 18. So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will be hardeneth.
  • 19. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault? For who withstandeth his will?
  • 20. Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thou make me thus?
  • 21. Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?
  • 22. What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction:
  • 23. and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory,
  • 24. [even] us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?
  • 25. As he saith also in Hosea, I will call that my people, which was not my people; And her beloved, that was not beloved.
  • 26. And it shall be, [that] in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, There shall they be called sons of the living God.
  • 27. And Isaiah crieth concerning Israel, If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved:
  • 28. for the Lord will execute [his] word upon the earth, finishing it and cutting it short.
  • 29. And, as Isaiah hath said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, We had become as Sodom, and had been made like unto Gomorrah.
  • 30. What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who followed not after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith:
  • 31. but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, did not arrive at [that] law.
  • 32. Wherefore? Because [they sought it] not by faith, but as it were by works. They stumbled at the stone of stumbling;
  • 33. even as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence: And he that believeth on him shall not be put to shame.