Romans 9:14-33 - God's Sovereign Choice To Show Mercy
14 What then are we to infer? That there is injustice in God? 15 No, indeed; the solution is found in His words to Moses, "Wherever I show mercy it shall be nothing but mercy, and wherever I show compassion it shall be simply compassion."
16 And from this we learn that everything is dependent not on man's will or endeavour, but upon God who has mercy. For the Scripture said to Pharaoh, 17 "It is for this very purpose that I have lifted you so high--that I may make manifest in you My power, and that My name may be proclaimed far and wide in all the earth."
18 This is a proof that wherever He chooses He shows mercy, and wherever he chooses He hardens the heart.
19 "Why then does God still find fault?" you will ask; "for who is resisting His will?" 20 Nay, but who are you, a mere man, that you should cavil against GOD? Shall the thing moulded say to him who moulded it, "Why have you made me thus?" 21 Or has not the potter rightful power over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for more honourable and another for less honourable uses? 22 And what if God, while choosing to make manifest the terrors of His anger and to show what is possible with Him, has yet borne with long-forbearing patience with the subjects of His anger who stand ready for destruction, 23 in order to make known His infinite goodness towards the subjects of His mercy whom He has prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even towards us whom He has called not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles? 25 So also in Hosea He says, "I will call that nation My People which was not My People, and I will call her beloved who was not beloved.
26 And in the place where it was said to them, 'No people of Mine are you,' there shall they be called sons of the everliving God."
27 And Isaiah cries aloud concerning Israel, "Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sands of the sea, only a remnant of them shall be saved; 28 for the Lord will hold a reckoning upon the earth, making it efficacious and brief."
29 Even as Isaiah says in an earlier place, "Were it not that the Lord, the God of Hosts, had left us some few descendants, we should have become like Sodom, and have come to resemble Gomorrah."
30 To what conclusion does this bring us? Why, that the Gentiles, who were not in pursuit of righteousness, have overtaken it--a righteousness, however, which arises from faith; 31 while the descendants of Israel, who were in pursuit of a Law that could give righteousness, have not arrived at one. 32 And why? Because they were pursuing a righteousness which should arise not from faith, but from what they regarded as merit. They stuck their foot against the stone which lay in their way; 33 in agreement with the statement of Scripture, "See, I am placing on Mount Zion a stone for people to stumble at, and a rock for them to trip over, and yet he whose faith rests upon it shall never have reason to feel ashamed."