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- I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry
- in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them.
- For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
- If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
- If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root,
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- do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.
- You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in."
- Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid.
- For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
- Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.
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- And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
- After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
- I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.
- And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
- And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins."
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- As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs,
- for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.
- Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience,
- so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you.
- For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
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- Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
- "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"
- "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"
- For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
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