Romans 9 — Greek text and reception
Each card preserves the Greek reading and its textual and reception notes. This source provides a Greek study edition; Hebrew counterparts and Hebrew–Greek classifications are not supplied.
Chapter 9
Israel, the promise, and God’s mercy
Verse 9:1
Greek–English Saints Priority
I speak truth in Christ; I do not lie, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit,
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:2
Greek–English Saints Priority
that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:3
Greek–English Saints Priority
For I could wish that I myself were accursed, away from Christ, for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh,
Textual & Reception Notes
The imperfect ηὐχόμην is rendered ‘I could wish’ for the agonized, unrealizable wish. Ἀνάθεμα is accursed or devoted to destruction; separation ‘from Christ’ and concern for his kin are both explicit.
Verse 9:4
Greek–English Saints Priority
who are Israelites, whose are the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the worship and the promises,
Textual & Reception Notes
The privileges are expressed in the present, ‘whose are,’ with all six items retained. The translation does not recast them as wholly former possessions.
Verse 9:5
Greek–English Saints Priority
whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed unto the ages. Amen.
Textual & Reception Notes
The draft connects ‘who is over all, God blessed unto the ages’ with Christ. Different punctuation can read the concluding words as a separate doxology to God; the Greek word sequence itself does not supply modern punctuation. The Christological construal is explicit rather than presented as a manuscript verdict.
Verse 9:6
Greek–English Saints Priority
But it is not as though God’s word has failed. For not all who are from Israel are Israel;
Textual & Reception Notes
The distinction within Israel is translated as stated; no new group name is inserted as the referent of the second Israel.
Verse 9:7
Greek–English Saints Priority
neither, because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all children; but, “In Isaac your seed will be called.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:8
Greek–English Saints Priority
That is, the children of the flesh are not thereby God’s children, but the children of the promise are reckoned as seed.
Textual & Reception Notes
‘Thereby’ expresses the contrast between fleshly descent and promise without claiming that the Greek has a separate corresponding adverb.
Verse 9:9
Greek–English Saints Priority
For this is a word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:10
Greek–English Saints Priority
And not only this, but also Rebecca, having conceived by one man, Isaac our father—
Textual & Reception Notes
The Greek expression refers literally to having a bed or conception from one man. ‘Having conceived’ gives the contextual sense, and Isaac’s identity is retained.
Verse 9:11
Greek–English Saints Priority
for when they had not yet been born or practiced anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election might remain,
Textual & Reception Notes
The purpose concerns God’s election before the twins’ birth or action. No unexpressed condition is added to predetermine the argument’s theology.
Verse 9:12
Greek–English Saints Priority
not from works but from the One who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger,”
Textual & Reception Notes
The quoted comparative terms are literally greater and lesser, understood as older and younger in this family setting. Δουλεύσει is serve in a relation of subordination.
Verse 9:13
Greek–English Saints Priority
just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Loved and hated are both retained; the latter is not replaced in the translation with an explanatory ‘loved less.’
Verse 9:14
Greek–English Saints Priority
What, then, shall we say? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be!
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:15
Greek–English Saints Priority
For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I have compassion.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:16
Greek–English Saints Priority
So then, it is not of the one who wills, nor of the one who runs, but of God who has mercy.
Textual & Reception Notes
The Greek has no explicit finite verb after ‘so then.’ The phrase retains the contrast in source or dependence, without adding an exhaustive description of human agency.
Verse 9:17
Greek–English Saints Priority
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, so that I might demonstrate My power in you, and so that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:18
Greek–English Saints Priority
So then, He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
Textual & Reception Notes
Both mercy and hardening are explicitly attributed to the divine subject in this sentence.
Verse 9:19
Greek–English Saints Priority
You will then say to me, “Why, then, does He still find fault? For who has resisted His purpose?”
Textual & Reception Notes
The objection is assigned to the imagined interlocutor; the question is not silently converted into Paul’s unqualified conclusion.
Verse 9:20
Greek–English Saints Priority
O man, on the contrary, who are you who answers back to God? Will what is formed say to the One who formed it, “Why did You make me this way?”
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:21
Greek–English Saints Priority
Or does the potter not have authority over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:22
Greek–English Saints Priority
But what if God, willing to demonstrate wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath fitted for destruction,
Textual & Reception Notes
The sentence is a conditional construction with no fully expressed concluding answer; English renders it as ‘what if.’ ‘Fitted’ is passive or middle in form and names no agent here; it is not automatically changed to ‘whom God prepared’ as in the next verse.
Verse 9:23
Greek–English Saints Priority
and did so to make known the wealth of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
Textual & Reception Notes
God is explicitly the agent of preparing the vessels of mercy beforehand. ‘Did so’ supplies the connection of the purpose clause to the preceding endurance, without equating its syntax with the unexpressed agent in 9:22.
Verse 9:24
Greek–English Saints Priority
even us whom He also called, not only from Jews but also from Gentiles?
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:25
Greek–English Saints Priority
As He also says in Hosea, “I will call the one not My people My people, and the one not beloved beloved;
Textual & Reception Notes
The first expression concerns a people, while ‘not beloved’ is feminine singular. English retains the two designations without changing both into one identical abstract noun.
Verse 9:26
Greek–English Saints Priority
and in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ there they will be called sons of the living God.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:27
Greek–English Saints Priority
But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of Israel’s sons be like the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved;
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:28
Greek–English Saints Priority
for the Lord will carry out a word on the earth, completing it and cutting it short.”
Textual & Reception Notes
The source has a short wording without an added clause about righteousness. ‘Completing and cutting short a word’ is a compressed expression for the Lord’s decisive execution of His pronouncement; the precise construal remains provisional.
Verse 9:29
Greek–English Saints Priority
And just as Isaiah has said beforehand, “Unless the Lord Sabaoth had left us seed, we would have become like Sodom and would have been made like Gomorrah.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Sabaoth is the source’s transliterated title, meaning Hosts. ‘Seed’ and both city names are retained.
Verse 9:30
Greek–English Saints Priority
What, then, shall we say? That Gentiles who were not pursuing righteousness attained righteousness, namely the righteousness from faith;
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 9:31
Greek–English Saints Priority
but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not attain law.
Textual & Reception Notes
The second occurrence is simply ‘law’ in the source, without a second ‘of righteousness.’ The terse object is retained.
Verse 9:32
Greek–English Saints Priority
Why? Because it was not from faith, but as though from works. They stumbled against the stone of stumbling,
Textual & Reception Notes
The source says ‘as though from works,’ with no additional ‘of law’ in this clause.
Verse 9:33
Greek–English Saints Priority
just as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and the one who believes in Him will not be put to shame.”
Textual & Reception Notes
The stone and rock images are kept distinct. The final personal ‘Him’ reflects the Christological application in Paul’s argument, while the Greek pronoun also agrees with the masculine stone.