Romans 9

Not all Israelites are God's true people

1 What I am telling you is true. I speak as someone who belongs to Christ. I am not telling lies. God's Holy Spirit rules my thoughts and I am sure that I am right. 2 I tell you this. Deep inside myself, I am always very sad and upset about the Jewish people. 3 I belong to the same family as they do. They are my own people. I really want them to believe in Christ too. If it would help them, I would even ask God to curse me. I would ask him to make me separate from Christ.

4 They are Israelites. God chose them to belong to him as his own children. He showed them his great glory. He made covenants with them and he gave his Law to them. He showed them how they should worship him. He promised them many good things. 5 It was their ancestors that God chose as his people many years ago. And Christ himself, as a man, was born to an Israelite family. Christ is God, who rules over all things. We should praise him for ever! Amen. This is true!

6 God promised good things to Israel's people. But I am not saying that God's promises failed. It is clear that not all of Israel's people are God's true people. 7 Not all of them are true descendants of Abraham. God told Abraham, ‘It is only Isaac that I will call the father of your descendants.’ 8 This means that not all of Abraham's children are really God's children. It is only those children who were born as a result of God's promise. They are the people that God calls true descendants. 9 This is what God promised to Abraham: ‘At this time next year I will come back. Then Sarah, your wife, will have a son.’

10 Remember this too: later, Isaac's wife, Rebekah, gave birth to twins. Those two sons had the same father, who was our ancestor, Isaac. 11 And God spoke to Rebekah before her sons were born. God spoke before the boys had done anything either good or bad. God did this to show clearly that he himself was choosing one child. He was not choosing someone because of what that person had done. He himself decided which one he would choose. 12 God said to Rebekah, ‘The older son will serve the younger son.’ 13 This is written in the Bible: ‘I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.’

14 Because of this, someone might say that God is not fair. No! We should never say that! 15 Remember that God said to Moses, ‘I will be kind to whoever I choose to be kind to. I will feel sorry for whoever I choose to feel sorry for.’

16 So then, it is God who decides these things. It is not because of what people want. It is not because of what people do. It is because God chooses to be kind.

17 The Bible tells us what God said to Pharaoh: ‘This is why I caused you to be king of Egypt. My purpose is to show how powerful I am. As a result, people everywhere will know that I am great.’ 18 So we see this: God is kind to some people and he forgives them. But he causes some people, like Pharaoh, to turn against him. He chooses what he will do with each person.

God himself decides who will be his people

19 One of you might say to me, ‘God always does what he wants to do. Nobody can stand against him. So God should not say that people have done wrong things.’

20 But you are only human. God has made you. You have no authority to speak against God like that. A pot cannot speak against the person who made it! It cannot ask him, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ 21 A potter can choose to make any kind of pot. He can use the same piece of clay to make two different pots. One of the pots may be for special parties. The other pot is for dirty things.

22 What does that teach us about God? Some people are like pots that are ready for God to destroy. God is angry with people like that. He is ready to show his power against them. But he has chosen to wait patiently. He keeps his anger for later. 23 Other people are like valuable pots that God has chosen to make. God wants to be kind to people like that. He wants to use them to show people how great he is. He has prepared them to be with him for a special party in heaven. 24 We are those people! God has chosen us to be his people. It is not only Jews that he has chosen. He has also chosen Gentiles. 25 God says this in the Book of Hosea:

‘I will say to people who were not my people,

“Now you are my people.”

I will say to people that I did not love,

“I love you.” ’

26 ‘God had said to them,

“You are not my people.”

In the same place where he said that,

people will now call them “Children of God who lives for ever.” ’

27 Also, Isaiah, God's prophet, said this about Israel's people:

‘There are so many of Israel's people, nobody can count them.

They are as many as the bits of sand on the shore of the sea.

But God will save only a few of them.

28 The Lord God will finish his work quickly.

He has warned his people what he will do.

And he will punish them completely.’

29 Isaiah had already said this:

‘The Almighty Lord has let some of our children live.

If he had not done that,

no descendants would remain.

We would have become like the people in Sodom and Gomorrah.’

30 So, we must think about what all this means. The Gentiles were not trying to become right with God. But some of them have now become right with him. God has accepted them as right, because they have believed in Jesus Christ. 31 Israel's people tried to find a law that would make them right with God. But they failed to become right with God. 32 They failed because they refused to believe in Christ. Instead, they were trying to do certain things so that God would accept them. Because of that they fell to the ground. Their feet hit the stone which causes people to fall. 33 It says this in the Bible:

‘Look, I am putting a special stone in Zion.

That stone will cause people to fall to the ground.

It is a rock that will make them fall down.

But anyone who believes in him will never become disappointed.’

Romans 10

1 My Christian friends, I truly want God to save Israel's people. I pray to God that he will save them. 2 I can say this about them: they really want to serve God well. But they do not understand the right way to do this. 3 They have not understood the way that God accepts people. Instead, they have tried to make their own way to become right with God. They have refused to accept God's way that would make them right with him. 4 God gave his Law to Israel's people for a purpose. Now Christ has done everything that the Law commanded. So every person who believes in Christ becomes right with God.

God wants everyone to be right with him

5 Moses wrote about how God's Law could help people to be right with God. He said, ‘If a person obeys the rules in God's Law, then he will live by them.’

6 But the Bible also speaks about another way. It shows how to become right with God because you trust him. It says: ‘Do not say to yourself, “Someone will have to go up into heaven.” ’ (That means, ‘Someone will have to bring Christ down from up there.’) 7 ‘Do not say to yourself either, “Someone will have to go down into the deep hole of death.” ’ (That means, ‘Someone will have to bring Christ up from the place where dead people are.’)

8 Instead, the Bible says, ‘God's message is near you. You can talk about it, and you can think about it.’ That is the same message that we are teaching to people. We tell people to believe in Jesus Christ.

9 The message is this: you must say clearly that Jesus is the Lord. Also, you must believe deep inside yourself that God raised him to life again after his death. Then God will save you. 10 God accepts people as right with him when they believe like that, deep inside themselves. And when people say clearly that Jesus is Lord, God saves them. 11 It says in the Bible,

‘Everyone who believes in him will not be disappointed.’

12 It says ‘everyone’. There is no difference between Jews and Gentiles. There is the same Lord for all of us. He blesses everyone who asks him for help. 13 As it says in the Bible: ‘Everyone who calls out to the Lord God for help will be safe.’

14 But people will never ask Christ to help them if they have not believed in him. And they will never believe in him if they have not heard about him. And they will not hear about him unless somebody tells God's message to them. 15 And nobody can tell God's message to people unless God sends them. This is written in the Bible: ‘When people arrive to tell us good news, we are happy to welcome them!’

16 But not everyone who has heard the good news obeys its message. Isaiah said, ‘Lord God, it seems that nobody has believed our message.’ 17 So, people must hear the message before they can trust God. And people hear that message when someone tells them about Christ.

18 Let me ask you this: ‘Did Israel's people hear that message?’ They certainly did! The Bible says:

‘People have spoken God's message everywhere.

People have heard his message in every part of the world.’

19 So I ask this too: ‘When Israel's people heard God's message, did they understand it?’ First, think about what Moses wrote. God said to Israel's people:

‘I will make you jealous because of people who are not my people.

I will make you angry because of people who know nothing about me.’

20 Also, this is what Isaiah said very bravely:

‘God says, “Those people who were not looking for me have found me.

I showed myself to people who were not even asking about me.” ’

21 But Isaiah says this about Israel's people:

‘God says, “For a very long time,

I have been asking my people to return to me.

But they refused to obey me.

They turned against me.” ’

Romans 11

God has not turned away from Israel's people

1 So I ask this: ‘Has God turned away from his people?’ No, certainly, he has not done that! I myself belong to Israel's people. I am a descendant of Abraham and I belong to Benjamin's tribe. 2 God chose who would be his people from the beginning. He has not turned against them now. Remember what the Bible tells us about Elijah. He wanted God to punish Israel's people. Elijah said, 3 ‘ Lord God, they have killed your prophets. They have destroyed the altars where people offered sacrifices to you. I am the only person alive who still serves you. And they are trying to kill me.’ 4 This was God's answer to Elijah: ‘There are still 7,000 men that I have kept for myself. Those men have not worshipped the false god Baal.’

5 It is the same at this time too. There is a small number of Israel's people that God has chosen to trust him. He has chosen them because he is very kind. 6 God has not chosen them because of any good things that they have done. If that were true, it would not be his gift to them that they do not deserve.

7 So we can say this: Israel's people did not all find what they were looking for. Only those people that God had chosen received it. But the other people of Israel were unable to understand God's message. 8 It says this in the Bible:

‘God caused them to be like people who are sleeping.

Even until today, their eyes cannot really see,

and their ears cannot really hear.’

9 King David said this:

‘I pray that their feasts will become a trap for them.

Let their feasts bring them trouble and punishment.

10 Let their eyes become dark so that they cannot see.

Let their bodies always be in pain, like slaves.’

11 So now I ask this: ‘When Israel's people failed to accept God's Messiah, did they make themselves separate from God for ever?’ No, certainly that is not true! Because of their mistake, God is now saving Gentiles. He is doing that to make Israel's people become jealous. 12 Because of their mistake, God has blessed everyone in the world. Israel's people failed to receive what God wanted to give them. As a result, God has blessed the Gentiles with many good things. So, when the complete number of Israel's people do turn to God, the result will be even better!

Jews and Gentiles are like branches on an olive tree

13 Now I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. God has sent me to be his apostle to the Gentiles. I thank him that he has given this important work to me. 14 I hope that my work among you Gentiles will cause my own Jewish people to be jealous. As a result, some of them may turn to God, so that he saves them. 15 When God turned away from Israel's people, he then accepted other people in the world as his friends. So, when God does accept Israel's people, the result will be even better! It will seem that dead people have become alive again!

16 If you offer the first piece of bread to God, then all the bread will belong to God. If the roots of a tree belong to God, then the branches will also be his. 17 Israel's people are like an olive tree that a farmer has planted. But God has broken off some of that tree's branches. Then he has taken a branch from a wild olive tree. He has put that wild branch into the farmer's tree, to become part of that tree. You Gentiles are like the wild branch. Now you receive food from the root of the farmer's tree, to make you strong. 18 Israel's people are like the branches that God broke off. But you Gentiles must not think that you are better than those branches. Remember that you are still only a branch. You do not make the root strong. No, it is the root that holds you up and makes you strong.

19 You might say, ‘God broke off the branches so that I could become part of the tree.’ 20 That is true. God broke them off because they did not believe in Christ. God has accepted you as part of the tree because you do believe in Christ. So do not become proud. Instead, be afraid. 21 God broke off the proper branches and he did not let them stay in the tree. So, if you no longer trust him, he may not let you stay either.

22 So you should think about what God is like. He is kind, but he also punishes people. He has punished Israel's people, because they turned away from him. He has been kind to you. But you must continue to accept his kind gift. If you do not do that, he will break you off from his tree too.

23 God is able to accept Israel's people back again. If they come to believe in Christ, God will put them back as part of the tree. He is able to make them become branches of the tree again. 24 God cut you like branches from a wild olive tree. Then he put you into the farmer's olive tree so that you became part of it. He could do that even though that was not your own tree. So God will be able to do that for Israel's people. He can easily put them back into their own tree that they were part of before.

God will save Israel's people

25 My Christian friends, I want to help you to understand about Israel's people. It is a secret that God has shown to us. If you really understand it, you will not be proud that you are so clever. Many of Israel's people have refused to believe in Christ. They will continue to refuse him until the complete number of Gentiles have believed. 26 When this has happened, God will save all Israel's people. This is written in the Bible:

‘The one who rescues will come from Zion.

He will turn Jacob's people away from their sins.

27 And I will make this covenant with them.

I will forgive them for their sins.’

28 Israel's people have become God's enemies, because they have refused to believe the good news about Christ. This has happened to help you who are Gentiles. But God still loves Israel's people, because he has chosen them as his own people. That is what he promised to their ancestors. 29 God's thoughts about his people cannot change. He has blessed them with gifts. He has chosen them to belong to him.

30 In past times, you Gentiles did not obey God. But now God has been very kind to you, because Israel's people refused to obey him. 31 Even now, they do not obey God. As a result, God may now be kind to them, in the same way that he has been kind to you. 32 God says that everyone is guilty because they do not obey him. He says that so that he can be kind and he can forgive everyone.

God is great and we should praise him

33 Yes! God is very great! He has everything! He knows and he understands all things! Nobody can completely understand the things that he decides. Nobody can explain the ways in which he works. 34 The Bible says this:

‘Nobody knows the thoughts of the Lord God.

Nobody is able to tell him what he should do.’

35 ‘Nobody has ever given anything to God

so that God had to pay something back to that person.’

36 It is God who made all things. He also causes all things to continue. And all things are there to show how great he is.

We praise him for ever! He is great! Amen. This is true!