"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy"

Romans 9:3-28

For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own people group, the people of Israel.

Theirs is the adoption as sons;

theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.

Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary,
"It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."
In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring. For this was how the promise was stated:
"At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son."
Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told,
"The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,

"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."
Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?
"Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
As he says in Hosea:
"I will call them 'my people' who are not my people;
and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one," and,
"It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,
'You are not my people,'
they will be called 'sons of the living God.' "
Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
"Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
For the Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality."

John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[a] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Let us continue to pray for God's Mercy so that our loved ones find faith, believe and trust in Jesus as it says is possible in John 3:16 "whoever believes"

Also pray the prayer in Isaiah 62:1, 6-7

"For Zion's sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her vindication goes forth as a brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch."
"Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent."

"You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem and make it a praise in the earth."