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.’
9:29See Isaiah 1:9 and Genesis 19:1-29. The people who lived in Sodom and Gomorrah were very wicked. So God destroyed those towns. 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.’
9:33See Isaiah 28:16; 8:14 and 1 Peter 2:6-8. Many people found it difficult to accept Jesus' teaching. This is why Jesus is like a rock that causes people to fall down. 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.
