20. But you are a mere man. So who are you to talk back to God? Scripture says, "Can what is made say to the one who made it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " (Isaiah 29:16; 45:9)
21. Isn't the potter free to make different kinds of pots out of the same lump of clay? Some are for special purposes. Others are for ordinary use.
22. What if God chose to show his great anger? What if he chose to make his power known? That is why he put up with people he was angry with. They had been made to be destroyed.
23. What if he did that to show the riches of his glory to others? Those are the people he shows his mercy to. He had prepared them to receive his glory.
24. We are those people. He has chosen us. We do not come only from the Jewish race. Many of us are not Jews.
25. God says in Hosea, "I will call those who are not my people 'my people.' I will call the one who is not my loved one 'my loved one.' " (Hosea 2:23)
26. He also says, "Once it was said to them, 'You are not my people.' In that very place they will be called 'children of the living God.' " (Hosea 1:10)
27. Isaiah cries out concerning Israel. He says, "The number of people from Israel may be like the sand by the sea. But only a few of them will be saved.
28. The Lord will carry out his sentence. He will be quick to carry it out on earth, once and for all." (Isaiah 10:22,23)
29. Earlier Isaiah had said, "The Lord who rules over all left us children and grandchildren. If he hadn't, we would have become like Sodom. We would have been like Gomorrah." (Isaiah 1:9)
30. What should we say then? Those who aren't Jews did not look for a way to be right with God. But they found it by having faith.
31. Israel did look for a law that could make them right with God. But they didn't find it.
32. Why not? Because they didn't look for it by faith. They tried to get it by working for it. They tripped over the stone that causes people to trip and fall.