Romans 9:7-12
J.B. Phillips New Testament
God’s purpose is not utterly defeated by this infidelity
6-7 Now this does not mean that God’s word to Israel has failed. For you cannot count all “Israelites” as the true Israel of God. Nor can all Abraham’s descendants be considered truly children of Abraham. The promise was that ‘in Isaac your seed shall be called’.
8-12 That means that it is not the natural descendants who automatically inherit the promise, but, on the contrary, that the children of the promise (i.e. sons of God) are to be considered truly Abraham’s children. For it was a promise when God said: ‘At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son’. (Everybody, remember, thought it quite impossible for Sarah to have a child.) And then, again, a word of promise came to Rebecca, at the time when she was pregnant with two children by the one man, Isaac our forefather. It came before the children were born or had done anything good or bad, plainly showing that God’s act of choice has nothing to do with achievements, good or bad, but is entirely a matter of his will. The promise was: ‘The older shall serve the younger’.
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Romans 9:7-9
New International Version
7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”[a](A) 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children,(B) but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.(C) 9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”[b](D)
Footnotes
- Romans 9:7 Gen. 21:12
- Romans 9:9 Gen. 18:10,14
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