Romans 11 — 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 11
The remnant, the olive tree, and mercy for all
Verse 11:1
Greek–English Saints Priority
I say, then, has God rejected His people? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, from Abraham’s seed, of Benjamin’s tribe.
Textual & Reception Notes
The question expects rejection of the proposition that God cast off His people. Paul’s own Israelite descent is offered as part of the response and is retained in full.
Verse 11:2
Greek–English Saints Priority
God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?
Textual & Reception Notes
‘In Elijah’ is the customary reference to the scriptural passage concerning him, not a claim of a separate book authored by Elijah.
Verse 11:3
Greek–English Saints Priority
“Lord, they killed Your prophets, they demolished Your altars, and I alone was left, and they seek my life.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 11:4
Greek–English Saints Priority
But what does the divine response say to him? “I left for Myself seven thousand men who did not bend the knee to Baal.”
Textual & Reception Notes
The source explicitly says seven thousand men. The divine keeping of a remnant counters Elijah’s claim to be alone.
Verse 11:5
Greek–English Saints Priority
So then, at the present time also there has come to be a remnant according to an election of grace.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 11:6
Greek–English Saints Priority
But if by grace, it is no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.
Textual & Reception Notes
This source ends at ‘grace.’ It does not add a second inverse clause beginning ‘if from works.’
Verse 11:7
Greek–English Saints Priority
What, then? What Israel seeks, it did not obtain; but the chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened,
Textual & Reception Notes
Ἐκλογή, literally election, is used for the chosen group. Hardening is passive here, not translated as a self-generated action without qualification.
Verse 11:8
Greek–English Saints Priority
just as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes not to see and ears not to hear, until this very day.”
Textual & Reception Notes
‘Spirit of stupor’ renders πνεῦμα κατανύξεως and is lowercase; the phrase is not identified with the Holy Spirit.
Verse 11:9
Greek–English Saints Priority
And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a recompense to them;
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 11:10
Greek–English Saints Priority
let their eyes be darkened so as not to see, and bend their back continually.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 11:11
Greek–English Saints Priority
I say, then, did they stumble so that they might fall? May it never be! But by their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous.
Textual & Reception Notes
The question contrasts stumbling with the fall envisaged as its goal. English keeps the wording without inserting ‘irrecoverably,’ while the following hope makes the rhetorical force clear.
Verse 11:12
Greek–English Saints Priority
But if their trespass is the world’s wealth and their loss the Gentiles’ wealth, how much more their fullness!
Textual & Reception Notes
Ἥττημα can denote loss, defeat, or diminished condition; πλήρωμα is fullness or full inclusion. The contrast is not reduced to a precise numerical forecast.
Verse 11:13
Greek–English Saints Priority
And I speak to you Gentiles. Insofar as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I glorify my ministry,
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 11:14
Greek–English Saints Priority
if somehow I may make my own flesh jealous and save some of them.
Textual & Reception Notes
‘My own flesh’ denotes Paul’s kin; the bodily metaphor is retained.
Verse 11:15
Greek–English Saints Priority
For if their rejection is the world’s reconciliation, what will their acceptance be except life from the dead?
Textual & Reception Notes
Rejection and acceptance are paired. The genitives do not explicitly name every agent or define the exact sense of ‘life from the dead.’
Verse 11:16
Greek–English Saints Priority
And if the firstfruits are holy, so is the lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
Textual & Reception Notes
The first image concerns the first portion of dough and the whole lump; the second concerns a root and branches. Neither firstfruits nor root is given a proper-name identification in this sentence.
Verse 11:17
Greek–English Saints Priority
But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became a fellow partaker of the olive tree’s rich root,
Textual & Reception Notes
Only ‘some’ branches are said to be broken off. The source has the genitive chain ‘root of the richness of the olive,’ rendered ‘rich root,’ rather than two separately coordinated gifts of root and richness.
Verse 11:18
Greek–English Saints Priority
do not boast over the branches. But if you boast, it is not you who bear the root, but the root bears you.
Textual & Reception Notes
The command directly forbids Gentile boasting over the branches; the root’s support of the grafted person is the stated reason.
Verse 11:19
Greek–English Saints Priority
You will then say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 11:20
Greek–English Saints Priority
Well: they were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not think lofty thoughts, but fear;
Textual & Reception Notes
The distinction is unbelief and faith, not an intrinsic superiority of one ethnicity. The singular ‘you’ continues the grafting address.
Verse 11:21
Greek–English Saints Priority
for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you.
Textual & Reception Notes
NA28: [μή πως] οὐδὲ σοῦ φείσεται, "perhaps He will not spare you either" (SBLGNT οὐδὲ σοῦ φείσεται); the rendering above follows SBLGNT; NA28 would read "perhaps He will not spare you either".
Verse 11:22
Greek–English Saints Priority
See, then, God’s kindness and severity: severity upon those who fell, but God’s kindness upon you, if you remain in the kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.
Textual & Reception Notes
The conditional continuation in kindness and the warning of being cut off are both explicit.
Verse 11:23
Greek–English Saints Priority
And they also, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 11:24
Greek–English Saints Priority
For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive, how much more will these natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree!
Textual & Reception Notes
The contrast between wild and cultivated olive, and the phrase ‘contrary to nature,’ belong to Paul’s analogy. No added claim about the effectiveness of a particular modern horticultural technique is needed.
Verse 11:25
Greek–English Saints Priority
For I do not wish you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you may not be wise in your own eyes: that a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles enters,
Textual & Reception Notes
The hardening is explicitly partial and is bounded by ‘until.’ Both restrictions remain.
Verse 11:26
Greek–English Saints Priority
and in this way all Israel will be saved, just as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
Textual & Reception Notes
Οὕτως is ‘in this way,’ not simply ‘then.’ ‘All Israel’ is kept without replacing it with a predetermined group definition. The quotation reads ‘from Zion’ in this source.
Verse 11:27
Greek–English Saints Priority
And this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 11:28
Greek–English Saints Priority
With regard to the gospel, they are enemies for your sake; but with regard to election, beloved for the fathers’ sake.
Textual & Reception Notes
Enemies with respect to the gospel and beloved with respect to election are simultaneous descriptions in the argument; neither is omitted.
Verse 11:29
Greek–English Saints Priority
For God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable.
Textual & Reception Notes
Ἀμεταμέλητα is irrevocable or not regretted, characterizing God’s gifts and calling.
Verse 11:30
Greek–English Saints Priority
For just as you once disobeyed God, but now received mercy through their disobedience,
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 11:31
Greek–English Saints Priority
so they also now disobeyed, so that through the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.
Textual & Reception Notes
The source includes both occurrences of ‘now.’ The dative ‘through the mercy shown to you’ is attached to their receiving mercy in this draft, though its placement also allows connection with their disobedience; the syntax needs review.
Verse 11:32
Greek–English Saints Priority
For God shut up all in disobedience so that He might have mercy on all.
Textual & Reception Notes
Both occurrences of ‘all’ remain, within the argument about Jews and Gentiles. The translation does not narrow or expand the group by adding an unexpressed qualifier.
Verse 11:33
Greek–English Saints Priority
O depth of God’s wealth and wisdom and knowledge! How unsearchable His judgments and untraceable His ways!
Textual & Reception Notes
Wealth, wisdom, and knowledge are three coordinated nouns. The two following descriptions concern judgments and ways respectively.
Verse 11:34
Greek–English Saints Priority
“For who knew the Lord’s mind? Or who became His counselor?
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 11:35
Greek–English Saints Priority
Or who gave to Him first, and it will be repaid to him?”
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 11:36
Greek–English Saints Priority
Because from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory unto the ages. Amen.
Textual & Reception Notes
The three prepositional relations—from, through, and to God—are all retained.