1. I say then, has God rejected His people? God forbid! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel, saying,
3. “Lord, they have killed Your prophets and destroyed Your altars. I alone am left, and they seek my life”?
4. But what is the divine reply to him? “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
5. So then at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
6. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. But if it is by works, then is it no longer by grace; otherwise work would no longer be work.
7. What then? Israel has not obtained what it was seeking. But the elect obtained it, and the rest were hardened.
8. As it is written: “God has given them a spirit of slumber,eyes that would not seeand ears that would not hear,to this very day.”