011:001 I ask then, Has God cast off His People? No, indeed. Why, I myself am an Israelite, of the posterity of Abraham and of the tribe of Benjamin. 011:002 God has not cast off His People whom He knew beforehand. Or are you ignorant of what Scripture says in speaking of Elijah-- how he pleaded with God against Israel, saying, 011:003 "Lord, they have put Thy Prophets to death, and have overthrown Thy altars; and, now that I alone remain, they are thirsting for my blood"? 011:004 But what did God say to him in reply? "I have reserved for Myself 7,000 men who have never bent the knee to Baal." 011:005 In the same way also at the present time there has come to be a remnant whom God in His grace has selected. 011:006 But if it is in His grace that He has selected them, then His choice is no longer determined by human actions. Otherwise grace would be grace no longer. 011:007 How then does the matter stand? It stands thus. That which Israel are in earnest pursuit of, they have not obtained; but God's chosen servants have obtained it, and the rest have become hardened. 011:008 And so Scripture says, "God has given them a spirit of drowsiness-- eyes to see nothing with and ears to hear nothing with-- even until now." 011:009 And David says, "Let their very food become a snare and a trap to them, a stumbling-block and a retribution. 011:010 Let darkness come over their eyes that they may be unable to see, and make Thou their backs continually to stoop." 011:011 I ask, however, "Have they stumbled so as to be finally ruined?" No, indeed; but by their lapse salvation has come to the Gentiles in order to arouse the jealousy of the descendants of Israel; 011:012 and if their lapse is the enriching of the world, and their overthrow the enriching of the Gentiles, will not still greater good follow their restoration? 011:013 But to you Gentiles I say that, since I am an Apostle specially sent to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry, 011:014 trying whether I can succeed in rousing my own countrymen to jealousy and thus save some of them. 011:015 For if their having been cast aside has carried with it the reconciliation of the world, what will their being accepted again be but Life out of death? 011:016 Now if the firstfruits of the dough are holy, so also is the whole mass; and if the root of a tree is holy, so also are the branches. 011:017 And if some of the branches have been pruned away, and you, although you were but a wild olive, have been grafted in among them and have become a sharer with others in the rich sap of the root of the olive tree,