Romans 11:1-22

¹I ask, then, ‘Has God rejected his people?’ Heaven forbid! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

²God has not rejected his people, whom he chose from the first. Have you forgotten the words of scripture in the story of Elijah — how he appeals to God against Israel?

³‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have pulled down your altars, and I only am left; and now they are eager to take my life.’

⁴But what was the divine response? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand who have never bowed the knee to Baal.’

⁵And so in our own time, too, there is to be found a remnant of our nation selected by God in love.

⁶But if in love, then it is not as a result of obedience. Otherwise love would cease to be love.

⁷What follows from this? Why, that Israel as a nation failed to secure what it was seeking, while those whom God selected did secure it.

⁸The rest grew callous; as scripture says — ‘God has given them a deadness of mind — eyes that are not to see and ears that are not to hear — and it is so to this very day.’

⁹David, too, says — ‘May their feasts prove a snare and a trap to them — a hindrance and a retribution;

¹⁰may their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see; and do you always make their backs to bend.’

¹¹I ask then — ‘Was their stumbling to result in their fall?’ Heaven forbid! On the contrary, through their falling away salvation has reached the Gentiles, to stir the rivalry of Israel.

¹²And, if their falling away has enriched the world, and their failure has enriched the Gentiles, how much more will result from their full restoration!

¹³But I am speaking to you who were Gentiles.

¹⁴Being myself an apostle to the Gentiles, I exalt my office, in the hope that I may stir my countrymen to rivalry, and so save some of them.

¹⁵For, if their being cast aside has meant the reconciliation of the world, what will their reception mean, but life from the dead?

¹⁶If the first handful of dough in holy, so is the whole mass; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

¹⁷Some, however, of the branches were broken off, and you, who were only a wild olive, were grafted in amongst them, and came to share with them the root which is the source of the richness of the cultivated olive.

¹⁸Yet do not exult over the other branches. But, if you do exult over them, remember that you do not support the root, but that the root supports you.

¹⁹But branches, you will say, were broken off, so that I might be grafted in.

²⁰True; it was because of their want of faith that they were broken off, and it is because of your faith that you are standing. Do not think too highly of yourself, but beware.

²¹For, if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

²²See, then, both the goodness and the severity of God — his severity towards those who fell, and his goodness towards you, provided that you continue to confide in that goodness; otherwise you, also, will be cut off.