Romans 9:14-33 - God's Sovereign Choice To Show Mercy

¹⁴ What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not! ¹⁵ For He tells Moses:

I will show mercy
to whom I will show mercy,
and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion.

¹⁶ So then it does not depend on human will or effort but on God who shows mercy. ¹⁷ For the Scripture tells Pharaoh:

I raised you up for this reason
so that I may display My power in you
and that My name may be proclaimed in all the earth.

¹⁸ So then, He shows mercy to those He wants to, and He hardens those He wants to harden.

¹⁹ You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?” ²⁰ But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” ²¹ Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor? ²² And what if God, desiring to display His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath ready for destruction? ²³ And what if He did this to make known the riches of His glory on objects of mercy that He prepared beforehand for glory— ²⁴ on us, the ones He also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? ²⁵ As He also says in Hosea:

I will call Not My People, My People,
and she who is Unloved, Beloved.

²⁶ And it will be in the place where they were told,
you are not My people,
there they will be called sons of the living God.

²⁷ But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

Though the number of Israel’s sons
is like the sand of the sea,
only the remnant will be saved;
²⁸ for the Lord will execute His sentence
completely and decisively on the earth.

²⁹ And just as Isaiah predicted:

If the Lord of Hosts had not left us offspring,
we would have become like Sodom,
and we would have been made like Gomorrah.

³⁰ What should we say then? Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained righteousness—namely the righteousness that comes from faith. ³¹ But Israel, pursuing the law for righteousness, has not achieved the righteousness of the law. ³² Why is that? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. ³³ As it is written:

Look! I am putting a stone in Zion to stumble over
and a rock to trip over,
yet the one who believes on Him
will not be put to shame.