28. For the lord will carry out his sentence upon the earthquickly and with finality.”
29. And Isaiah said the same thing in another place:“If the lord of Heaven’s Armieshad not spared a few of our children,we would have been wiped out like Sodom,destroyed like Gomorrah.”
30. What does all this mean? Even though the Gentiles were not trying to follow God’s standards, they were made right with God. And it was by faith that this took place.
31. But the people of Israel, who tried so hard to get right with God by keeping the law, never succeeded.
32. Why not? Because they were trying to get right with God by keeping the law instead of by trusting in him. They stumbled over the great rock in their path.
33. God warned them of this in the Scriptures when he said, “I am placing a stone in Jerusalem that makes people stumble,a rock that makes them fall.But anyone who trusts in himwill never be disgraced.”