Romans 9:14-33 - God's Sovereign Choice To Show Mercy
14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? There is not! 15 He says to Moses, I will show mercy to the one I choose to show mercy, and I will feel compassion for the one I choose to feel compassion.
16 So then it does not depend on mans will or effort, but on God who shows mercy. 17 The scripture says to Pharaoh: For this reason I have raised you up, that I might through you, show my power and declare my name in all the earth.
18 He shows mercy to the one he chooses, and he allows others to be stubborn.
19 You say to me: Why does he yet find fault? Who resists his purpose (will)? 20 Yes, but you, O man, who are you to answer back to God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why have you made me this way? (Isaiah 45:9) 21 Or does the potter not have authority over the clay? Can he make out of the same lump one vessel to honor, and another for common use? (Jeremiah 18:6) 22 If God decided to show his wrath and make his power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fit for destruction. 23 In that way he could make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy that he had prepared in advance for glory. 24 We are the ones he has also called, not only from among the Jews, but also from among the nations. 25 He says also in Hosea: Those who are not my people I will call my people. And she who is not loved I will call loved.
26 In the place where it was said to them: You are not my people, they will be called Sons of the living God. (Hosea 2:23)
27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: Should the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved. 28 He is bringing the matter to an end, and cutting it short in righteousness. Jehovah will make an accounting on the earth. (Isaiah 10:22)
29 Just as Isaiah said earlier: Unless Jehovah of Hosts had left a seed to us, we should have become like Sodom, and Gomorrah. (Isaiah 1:9)
30 What shall we say? The nations did not pursue righteousness. Yet they have attained to righteousness, the righteousness that is based on the principle of faith. 31 But Israel, pursuing after a law of righteousness, has not attained to that law. 32 Why? It is because it was not based on the principle of faith, but on that of works. They have stumbled at the stumbling stone. 33 It is written: Behold, I place in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence and he that believes on him will not be ashamed. (Isaiah 8:14)