His words to Moses are. I will have mercy on whom I choose to have mercy; I will have compassion on whom I choose to have compassion. So then it is not a question of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. read more. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, It is for this very purpose that I have raised you up, To show in you my power, And to proclaim my name far and wide, in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whom he will, and whom he will, he hardens. Then you will say to me. "Why does he still go on finding fault? Who can withstand his will?" "Nay, but who are you, O man, that replies to God? Shall the thing formed say unto him who formed it, "Why did you do me like this?" Or has not the potter power over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for noble, and another for ignoble uses? But what if God, while intending to show forth his wrath, and to make known his power, yet endured, with much long-suffering, vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction? And what if he thus purposed to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory?

"Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, To receive the glory and the honor and the power; For thou didst create all things, And because of thy will they came into being And were created."