If the first handful of dough in holy, so is the whole mass; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

Some, however, of the branches were broken off, and you, who were only a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and came to share with them the root which is the source of the richness of the cultivated olive.

Yet do not exult over the other branches. But, if you do exult over them, remember that you do not support the root, but that the root supports you.

But branches, you will say, were broken off, so that I might be grafted in.

For, if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

If you were cut off from your natural stock--a wild olive-- and were grafted, contrary to the course of nature, upon a good olive, much more will they--the natural branches--be grafted back into their parent tree.