Not that God's message has failed. For not everybody who is descended from Israel really belongs to Israel,

And Isaiah cries out about Israel, "Although the sons of Israel are as numerous as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,

while Israel, straining after a law that should bring uprightness, did not come up to it.

But I ask again, did Israel fail to understand? Why, to begin with, Moses said, "I will make you jealous of what is no nation at all, I will exasperate you at a senseless nation."

But of Israel he said, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people."

God has not repudiated his people, which he had marked out from the first. Do you not know what the Scripture says in speaking of Elijah, how he appealed to God against Israel?

What follows? Israel failed to get what it sought, but those whom God selected got it.

For to keep you from thinking too well of yourselves, brothers, I do not want you to miss this secret, that only partial insensibility has come upon Israel, to last until all the heathen have come in,

and then all Israel will be saved, just as the Scripture says, "The deliverer will come from Zion, He will drive all ungodliness away from Jacob,