1. So I ask you, has God rejected his people? Absolutely not! I’m an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.
2. God hasn’t rejected his people, whom he knew in advance. Or don’t you know what the scripture says in the case of Elijah, when he pleads with God against Israel?
3. Lord, they have killed your prophets, and they have torn down your altars. I’m the only one left, and they are trying to take my life.
4. But what is God’s reply to him? I have kept for myself seven thousand people who haven’t bowed their knees to Baal.
5. So also in the present time there is a remaining group by the choice of God’s grace.
6. But if it is by grace, it isn’t by what’s done anymore. If it were, God’s grace wouldn’t be grace.
7. So what? Israel didn’t find what it was looking for. Those who were chosen found it, but the others were resistant.
8. As it is written, God gave them a dull spirit, so that their eyes would not see and their ears not hear, right up until the present day.
9. And David says, Their table should become a pitfall and a trap, a stumbling block and payback to them for what they have done.
10. Their eyes should be darkened so they can’t see, and their backs always bent.
11. So I’m asking you: They haven’t stumbled so that they’ve fallen permanently, have they? Absolutely not! But salvation has come to the Gentiles by their failure, in order to make Israel jealous.
12. But if their failure brings riches to the world, and their defeat brings riches to the Gentiles, how much more will come from the completion of their number!
13. I’m speaking to you Gentiles. Considering that I’m an apostle to the Gentiles, I publicize my own ministry
14. in the hope that somehow I might make my own people jealous and save some of them.
15. If their rejection has brought about a close relationship between God and the world, how can their acceptance mean anything less than life from the dead?