Study Desk

For in hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see, we await it eagerly with patient endurance.

And likewise also, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as one ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unexpressed groanings.

And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose,

What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, together with him, freely give us all things?

Who is the one who condemns? Christ is the one who died, and more than that, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

Just as it is written, "On account of you we are being put to death the whole day long; we are considered as sheep for slaughter."

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,

For I could wish myself to be accursed from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my fellow countrymen according to the flesh,

But it is not as if the word of God had failed. For not all those who are descended from Israel are truly Israel,

For the statement of the promise is this: "At this time I will return and Sarah will have a son."

for although they had not yet been born, or done anything good or evil, in order that the purpose of God according to election might remain,

For to Moses he says, "I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I have compassion."

For the scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very reason I have raised you up, so that I may demonstrate my power in you, and so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

Therefore you will say to me, "Why then does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will?

Or does the potter not have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump a vessel that is for honorable use and one that is for ordinary use?

And what if God, wanting to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

And he did so in order that he could make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory,

for the Lord will execute his sentence thoroughly and decisively upon the earth."