13. As the scripture says, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.”
14. Shall we say, then, that God is unjust? Not at all.
15. For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on anyone I wish; I will take pity on anyone I wish.”
16. So then, everything depends, not on what human beings want or do, but only on God's mercy.
17. For the scripture says to the king of Egypt, “I made you king in order to use you to show my power and to spread my fame over the whole world.”
18. So then, God has mercy on anyone he wishes, and he makes stubborn anyone he wishes.
19. But one of you will say to me, “If this is so, how can God find fault with anyone? Who can resist God's will?”
20. But who are you, my friend, to answer God back? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, “Why did you make me like this?”
21. After all, the man who makes the pots has the right to use the clay as he wishes, and to make two pots from the same lump of clay, one for special occasions and the other for ordinary use.
22. And the same is true of what God has done. He wanted to show his anger and to make his power known. But he was very patient in enduring those who were the objects of his anger, who were doomed to destruction.
23. And he also wanted to reveal his abundant glory, which was poured out on us who are the objects of his mercy, those of us whom he has prepared to receive his glory.
24. For we are the people he called, not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles.
25. This is what he says in the book of Hosea:“The people who were not mineI will call ‘My People’.The nation that I did not loveI will call ‘My Beloved’.
26. And in the very place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’there they will be called the children of the living God.”
27. And Isaiah exclaims about Israel: “Even if the people of Israel are as many as the grains of sand by the sea, yet only a few of them will be saved;
28. for the Lord will quickly settle his full account with the world.”
29. It is as Isaiah had said before, “If the Lord Almighty had not left us some descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.”
30. So we say that the Gentiles, who were not trying to put themselves right with God, were put right with him through faith;
31. while God's people, who were seeking a law that would put them right with God, did not find it.