9:19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who has ever resisted his will?” 9:20 But who indeed are you – a mere human being 8 – to talk back to God? 9 Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 10 9:21 Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay 11 one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use? 12 9:22 But what if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects 13 of wrath 14 prepared for destruction? 15 9:23 And what if he is willing to make known the wealth of his glory on the objects 16 of mercy that he has prepared beforehand for glory – 9:24 even us, whom he has called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 9:25 As he also says in Hosea:
“I will call those who were not my people, ‘My people,’ and I will call her who was unloved, 17 ‘My beloved.’” 18
9:26 “And in the very place 19 where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’” 20
9:27 And Isaiah cries out on behalf of Israel, “Though the number of the children 21 of Israel are as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved, 9:28 for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth completely and quickly.” 22 9:29 Just 23 as Isaiah predicted,
“If the Lord of armies 24 had not left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
and we would have resembled Gomorrah.” 25
9:30 What shall we say then? – that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness obtained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith, 9:31 but Israel even though pursuing 26 a law of righteousness 27 did not attain it. 28 9:32 Why not? Because they pursued 29 it not by faith but (as if it were possible) by works. 30 They stumbled over the stumbling stone, 31 9:33 just as it is written,
“Look, I am laying in Zion a stone that will cause people to stumble
and a rock that will make them fall, 32
yet the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 33