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Israel’s Rejection Is Not Final

11I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. ²God 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? ³‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.’ ⁴But what is the divine reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ ⁵So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. ⁶But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.^*

7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, ⁸as it is written,
‘God gave them a sluggish spirit,
   eyes that would not see
   and ears that would not hear,
down to this very day.’
⁹And David says,
‘Let their table become a snare and a trap,
   a stumbling-block and a retribution for them;
¹⁰ let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,
   and keep their backs for ever bent.’

The Salvation of the Gentiles

11 So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means! But through their stumbling^* salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel^* jealous. ¹²Now if their stumbling^* means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify my ministry ¹⁴in order to make my own people^* jealous, and thus save some of them. ¹⁵For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead! ¹⁶If the part of the dough offered as first fruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; and if the root is holy, then the branches also are holy.

17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root^* of the olive tree, ¹⁸do not vaunt yourselves over the branches. If you do vaunt yourselves, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. ¹⁹You will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ ²⁰That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. ²¹For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you.^{* 22}Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity towards those who have fallen, but God’s kindness towards you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. ²³And even those of Israel,^* if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. ²⁴For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.