18. So then, God has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden.
19. You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who has ever resisted his will?”
20. But who indeed are you – a mere human being – to talk back to God? Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
21. Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use?
22. But what if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction?
23. And what if he is willing to make known the wealth of his glory on the objects of mercy that he has prepared beforehand for glory –
24. even us, whom he has called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
25. As he also says in Hosea:“I will call those who were not my people, ‘My people,’ and I will call her who was unloved, ‘My beloved.’”
26. “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
27. And Isaiah cries out on behalf of Israel, “Though the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved,