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16 Everything then depends on God's mercy and not on what people want or do. 17 (A) In the Scriptures the Lord says to the king of Egypt, “I let you become king, so that I could show you my power and be praised by all people on earth.” 18 Everything depends on what God decides to do, and he can either have pity on people or make them stubborn.

God's Anger and Mercy

19 Someone may ask, “How can God blame us, if he makes us behave in the way he wants us to?” 20 (B) But, my friend, I ask, “Who do you think you are to question God? Does the clay have the right to ask the potter why he shaped it the way he did? 21 (C) Doesn't a potter have the right to make a fancy bowl and a plain bowl out of the same lump of clay?”

22 (D) God wanted to show his anger and reveal his power against everyone who deserved to be destroyed. But instead, he patiently put up with them. 23 He did this by showing how glorious he is when he has pity on the people he has chosen to share in his glory. 24 Whether Jews or Gentiles, we are those chosen ones, 25 (E) just as the Lord says in the book of Hosea,

“Although they are not
my people,
    I will make them my people.
I will treat with love
those nations
    that have never been loved.

26 (F) “Once they were told,
    ‘You are not my people.’
But in that very place
they will be called
    children of the living God.”

27 (G) And this is what the prophet Isaiah said about the people of Israel,

“The people of Israel
    are as many
as the grains of sand
    along the beach.
But only a few who are left
    will be saved.
28 The Lord will be quick
    and sure to do on earth
what he has warned
    he will do.”

29 (H) Isaiah also said,

“If the Lord All-Powerful
had not spared some
    of our descendants,
we would have been destroyed
like the cities of Sodom
    and Gomorrah.”[a]

Israel and the Good News

30 What does all of this mean? It means that the Gentiles were not trying to be acceptable to God, but they found that he would accept them if they had faith. 31-32 It also means that the people of Israel were not acceptable to God. And why not? It was because they were trying[b] to be acceptable by obeying the Law instead of by having faith in God. The people of Israel fell over the stone that makes people stumble, 33 (I) just as God says in the Scriptures,

“Look! I am placing in Zion
a stone to make people
    stumble and fall.
But those who have faith
in that one will never
    be disappointed.”

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Footnotes

  1. 9.29 Sodom and Gomorrah: During the time of Abraham the Lord destroyed these two cities because their people were so sinful.
  2. 9.31,32 because they were trying: Or “while they were trying” or “even though they were trying.”

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