Romans · 33 verses
Romans 9
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
The people who did not pursue righteousness obtain it; the people who pursued it do not.
The sorrow over Israelvv. 1–5
The speaker begins with an oath of truth and a heart that will not stop grieving. He could wish himself cut off from Christ for the sake of his own people, though Israel already possesses an extraordinary inheritance: adoption, glory, covenants, law, worship, promises, the patriarchs, and the human descent of Christ. It is a splendid list, and a sorrowful one.
The choice before the twinsvv. 6–24
The word of God has not failed, because descent from Israel does not by itself make a person Israel, nor does descent from Abraham settle the matter. Isaac, rather than every child of Abraham, is named; Sarah is promised a son; and Rebecca’s children are given an unusually emphatic paternity: one father, Isaac. Before Jacob and Esau have done anything at all, the older is assigned to serve the younger. The argument then widens from the twins to Moses and Pharaoh, from mercy to hardening, and finally to the potter with one lump of clay and two sorts of vessel. The Gentiles appear among the vessels of mercy, which is a remarkably large destination for an argument that began in one family.
Not My people, then My peoplevv. 25–33
Hosea supplies the chapter’s startling change of address: those called not My people become My People, and the unloved become the beloved, in the very place where the former name was spoken. Isaiah then leaves only a remnant of Israel in the picture and compares the rest, without any softening of the image, to Sodom and Gomorrah. At last the sharp reversal arrives in plain terms: Gentiles obtain righteousness without pursuing it, while Israel pursues a law of righteousness and does not attain it. The stumbling stone waits at the end, and the chapter leaves the reader beside it.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Rom 9:1I speak the truth in Christ; I am not lying, as confirmed by my conscience in the Holy Spirit.
Rom 9:2I have deep sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
Rom 9:3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my own flesh and blood,
Rom 9:4the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory and the covenants; theirs the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises.
Rom 9:5Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them proceeds the human descent of Christ, who is God over all, forever worthy of praise! Amen.
Rom 9:6It is not as though God’s word has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
Rom 9:7Nor because they are Abraham’s descendants are they all his children. On the contrary, “Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.”
Rom 9:8So it is not the children of the flesh who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as offspring.
Rom 9:9For this is what the promise stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”
Rom 9:10Not only that, but Rebecca’s children were conceived by one man, our father Isaac.
Rom 9:11Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God’s plan of election might stand,
Rom 9:12not by works but by Him who calls, she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”
Rom 9:13So it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Rom 9:14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Certainly not!
Rom 9:15For He says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
Rom 9:16So then, it does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
Rom 9:17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
Rom 9:18Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.
Rom 9:19One of you will say to me, “Then why does God still find fault? For who can resist His will?”
Rom 9:20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why did You make me like this?”
Rom 9:21Does not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?
Rom 9:22What if God, intending to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction?
Rom 9:23What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the vessels of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory—
Rom 9:24including us, whom He has called not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles?
Rom 9:25As He says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘My People’ who are not My people, and I will call her ‘My Beloved’ who is not My beloved,”
Rom 9:26and, “It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
Rom 9:27Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.
Rom 9:28For the Lord will carry out His sentence on the earth thoroughly and decisively.”
Rom 9:29It is just as Isaiah foretold: “Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.”
Rom 9:30What then will we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;
Rom 9:31but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.
Rom 9:32Why not? Because their pursuit was not by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,
Rom 9:33as it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.”
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 501 passages were voted onto 33 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 33Isaiah 28:16So this is what the Lord GOD says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will never be shaken.
- 15Exodus 33:19“I will cause all My goodness to pass before you,” the LORD replied, “and I will proclaim My name—the LORD—in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
- 13Malachi 1:2–3“I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you ask, “How have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet Jacob I have loved,
- 17Exodus 9:16But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power to you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
- 25Hosea 2:23And I will sow her as My own in the land, and I will have compassion on ‘No Compassion.’ I will say to those called ‘Not My People,’ ‘You are My people,’ and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”
- 27Isaiah 10:20–23On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer depend on him who struck them, but they will truly rely on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.
- 20Isaiah 29:16You have turned things upside down, as if the potter were regarded as clay. Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pottery say of the potter, “He has no understanding”?
- 33Isaiah 8:14–15And He will be a sanctuary—but to both houses of Israel a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, to the dwellers of Jerusalem a trap and a snare.
- 7Genesis 21:12But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to everything that Sarah tells you, for through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.
- 15Romans 9:16So then, it does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
- 16Ephesians 2:8For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God,
- 22Proverbs 16:4The LORD has made everything for His purpose—even the wicked for the day of disaster.
- 29Isaiah 1:9Unless the LORD of Hosts had left us a few survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.
- 33Romans 10:11It is just as the Scripture says: “Anyone who believes in Him will never be put to shame.”
- 9Genesis 18:10Then the LORD said, “I will surely return to you at this time next year, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was behind him, listening at the entrance to the tent.
- 15Micah 7:18Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?
Onward