Riverside(i)
1 I SAY then, can it be that God has repudiated his people? Never. For I am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God has not repudiated his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says in the story of Elijah, how he prays to God against Israel?
3 "Lord, they have killed thy prophets: they have demolished thy altars, and I only am left and they are seeking my life."
4 But what was the divine response? "I have left to myself seven thousand men who have not knelt to Baal."
5 So at this present time there is a remnant according to a gracious selection.
6 But if it is by grace it is no longer because of works, for then grace would be no longer grace.
7 What then? Israel has not found what it is seeking, but the chosen have found it. And the rest have been made dull,
8 as it is written, "God gave them a stupid spirit, eyes not for seeing and ears not for hearing until this day."
9 And David says, "Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution.
10 Let their eyes be darkened so as not to see, and bow down their backs always."
11 I say, then, have they stumbled just in order that they may fall? Never. But by their fall salvation comes to the Gentiles so as to arouse the emulation of the Jews.
12 If their fall is the riches of the world and their loss the riches of the Gentiles, how much more will their full restoration be!