009:020 Nay, but who are you, a mere man, that you should cavil against GOD? Shall the thing moulded say to him who moulded it, "Why have you made me thus?" 009:021 Or has not the potter rightful power over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for more honourable and another for less honourable uses? 009:022 And what if God, while choosing to make manifest the terrors of His anger and to show what is possible with Him, has yet borne with long-forbearing patience with the subjects of His anger who stand ready for destruction, 009:023 in order to make known His infinite goodness towards the subjects of His mercy whom He has prepared beforehand for glory, 009:024 even towards us whom He has called not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles? 009:025 So also in Hosea He says, "I will call that nation My People which was not My People, and I will call her beloved who was not beloved. 009:026 And in the place where it was said to them, `No people of Mine are you,' there shall they be called sons of the everliving God." 009:027 And Isaiah cries aloud concerning Israel, "Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sands of the sea, only a remnant of them shall be saved; 009:028 for the Lord will hold a reckoning upon the earth, making it efficacious and brief." 009:029 Even as Isaiah says in an earlier place, "Were it not that the Lord, the God of Hosts, had left us some few descendants, we should have become like Sodom, and have come to resemble Gomorrah." 009:030 To what conclusion does this bring us? Why, that the Gentiles, who were not in pursuit of righteousness, have overtaken it-- a righteousness, however, which arises from faith; 009:031 while the descendants of Israel, who were in pursuit of a Law that could give righteousness, have not arrived at one. 009:032 And why? Because they were pursuing a righteousness which should arise not from faith, but from what they regarded as merit. They stuck their foot against the stone which lay in their way; 009:033 in agreement with the statement of Scripture, "See, I am placing on Mount Zion a stone for people to stumble at, and a rock for them to trip over, and yet he whose faith rests upon it shall never have reason to feel ashamed." 010:001 Brethren, the longing of my heart, and my prayer to God, on behalf of my countrymen is for their salvation. 010:002 For I bear witness that they possess an enthusiasm for God, but it is an unenlightened enthusiasm. 010:003 Ignorant of the righteousness which God provides and building their hopes upon a righteousness of their own, they have refused submission to God's righteousness.