MSB(i)
13 So it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Certainly not!
15 For He says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 So then, it does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
17 For 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.”
18 Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me, “Why does God still find fault? For who can resist His will?”
20 But 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?”
21 Does not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?
22 What if God, intending to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction?
23 What 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—