1 With Christ as my witness, I speak with utter truthfulness. My conscience and the Holy Spirit confirm it.
2 My heart is filled with bitter sorrow and unending grief
3 for my people, my Jewish brothers and sisters. I would be willing to be forever cursed—cut off from Christ!—if that would save them.
4 They are the people of Israel, chosen to be God’s adopted children. God revealed his glory to them. He made covenants with them and gave them his law. He gave them the privilege of worshiping him and receiving his wonderful promises.
5 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are their ancestors, and Christ himself was an Israelite as far as his human nature is concerned. And he is God, the one who rules over everything and is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.
6 Well then, has God failed to fulfill his promise to Israel? No, for not all who are born into the nation of Israel are truly members of God’s people!
7 Being descendants of Abraham doesn’t make them truly Abraham’s children. For the Scriptures say, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted,” though Abraham had other children, too.
8 This means that Abraham’s physical descendants are not necessarily children of God. Only the children of the promise are considered to be Abraham’s children.
9 For God had promised, “I will return about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
10 This son was our ancestor Isaac. When he married Rebekah, she gave birth to twins.
11 But before they were born, before they had done anything good or bad, she received a message from God. (This message shows that God chooses people according to his own purposes;
12 he calls people, but not according to their good or bad works.) She was told, “Your older son will serve your younger son.”
13 In the words of the Scriptures, “I loved Jacob, but I rejected Esau.”
14 Are we saying, then, that God was unfair? Of course not!
15 For God said to Moses, “I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.”
16 So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it.
17 For the Scriptures say that God told Pharaoh, “I have appointed you for the very purpose of displaying my power in you and to spread my fame throughout the earth.”
18 So you see, God chooses to show mercy to some, and he chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen.
GOOD NEWS TRANSLATION
1 I am speaking the truth; I belong to Christ and I do not lie. My conscience, ruled by the Holy Spirit, also assures me that I am not lying
2 when I say how great is my sorrow, how endless the pain in my heart
3 for my people, my own flesh and blood! For their sake I could wish that I myself were under God's curse and separated from Christ.
4 They are God's people; he made them his children and revealed his glory to them; he made his covenants with them and gave them the Law; they have the true worship; they have received God's promises;
5 they are descended from the famous Hebrew ancestors; and Christ, as a human being, belongs to their race. May God, who rules over all, be praised forever! Amen.
6 I am not saying that the promise of God has failed; for not all the people of Israel are the people of God.
7 Nor are all of Abraham's descendants the children of God. God said to Abraham, “It is through Isaac that you will have the descendants I promised you.”
8 This means that the children born in the usual way are not the children of God; instead, the children born as a result of God's promise are regarded as the true descendants.
9 For God's promise was made in these words: “At the right time I will come back, and Sarah will have a son.”
10 And this is not all. For Rebecca's two sons had the same father, our ancestor Isaac.
11-12 But in order that the choice of one son might be completely the result of God's own purpose, God said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” He said this before they were born, before they had done anything either good or bad; so God's choice was based on his call, and not on anything they had done.
13 As the scripture says, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.”
14 Shall we say, then, that God is unjust? Not at all.
15 For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on anyone I wish; I will take pity on anyone I wish.”
16 So then, everything depends, not on what we humans want or do, but only on God's mercy.
17 For the scripture says to the king of Egypt, “I made you king in order to use you to show my power and to spread my fame over the whole world.”
18 So then, God has mercy on anyone he wishes, and he makes stubborn anyone he wishes.
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