Daily Bread

¹⁹ One of you will say to me:^(A) “Then why does God still blame us?^(B) For who is able to resist his will?”^{(C) 20} But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?^(D) “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,^(E) ‘Why did you make me like this?’”^{[a](F) 21} Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?^(G)

²² What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience^(H) the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?^{(I) 23} What if he did this to make the riches of his glory^(J) known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory^(K)— ²⁴ even us, whom he also called,^(L) not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?^{(M) 25} As he says in Hosea:

²⁶ and,

²⁷ Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

²⁹ It is just as Isaiah said previously:

Israel’s Unbelief

³⁰ What then shall we say?^(U) That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;^{(V) 31} but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness,^(W) have not attained their goal.^{(X) 32} Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.^{(Y) 33} As it is written: